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www.sevam andir. org Annual Report 2010-2011

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Annual Report 2010-2011

Seva Mandir Old Fatehpura, Udaipur Rajasthan, INDIA – 313 004

Tel: +91 294 2451041/ 2452001 / 2452002, Fax: +91 294 2450947 E-mail: [email protected]. Web: www.sevamandir.org


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Contents

Vil lage Instituti ons Programme ... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .3

Natural Resources Devel opment Programme . .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... .... ... .8

Wom en’s Empowerment Program .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 21

Early C hildhood Care and Development Programme ... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... .... .. 32

Educat ion Program .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 43

Healt h Program me .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 55

Chil d R epresentative Programme . .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... ... 68

Peopl e’s Management School (PMS). ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 69

Urban Block. ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 75

Kumbhalgarh... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 79

Delwara- Governance in Peri-Urban Settlements . .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... 83

Resource Mobilizati on Unit. ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... .... .. 89

Annexure…………………………………………………………………………….... 3


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Village Institutions Programme The vill age instit ution programm e of Seva Mandir aims to create and nurture alt ernati ve

and autonomous platforms through which citizens can become responsi ble for t heir own development. These autonomous platforms are cal led t he vill age development

commi ttees or Gram Vikas committ ees (GVCs). Each village also has a vill age fund call ed a Gram Vi kas Kosh (GVK). The GVKs have been built t hrough people’s own

contri bution. At present, Seva Mandir has support ed the formation of 617 vi llage funds hol ding a total o f R s. 35, 938,051. The funds are bei ng managed by dem ocratically elected and trained

GVCs. Several of these vi ll age institut ions have taken leadershi p in working for thei r common good and self-governance. T he foll owing sections gi ve a brief of the mai n

acti viti es carried out in the reporting period.

The Village Committees (GVCs)

Village devel opment committ ees are dem ocrati call y el ected com mit tees consi sti ng of

7/13 people wi th 50% of t he members bei ng wom en, who are given t he responsi bility of ensuring proper funct ioning of village inst itut ion. The GVCs plays the rol e of l ooki ng aft er the development projects running in t heir village and work towards increas ing people’s parti cipati on in t he meetings and decision making processes. At present, there

are 518 GVC s, which is an increase of 26 GVC s from the last year figure of 492. At

present, Among 617 GVKs, at 518 places GVCs have been formed whi ch i s coverage of 84%. Similarly, t he membership during 2010-11 has reached 54,220 households, which is an i ncrease of 2, 194 from last year.

The elect ions for key positions in GVCs take place when the mandatory conditi on of 80%

household membership is ful filled. Last year, a total of 26 electi ons were held for t he 3 positi ons and 67 re-elections, against the target of 31 elect ions and 96 re-elections. T he

major reason behind this fall in t he re-el ection i s the hardshi p fel t in ensuring 60% members partici pation in re-election especially on the account of mi grati on.

Regular t rai nings were hel d for the GVC s to support them i n carrying out their responsibi lities well. There are two main kinds of trai nings imparted within the Vill age Institutions program. The first is that of strengthening the base group-cal led group

strengt hening initi atives. T he second i s more focused on the GVC’s skill building. T he table below gives detai ls of various trainings t hat were held this year.


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The t rai ni ngs while hel ping the deepening of speci fi c skill have al so emerged as good

forum s for cross learning amongst the communities. This year saw an increase i n parti cipati on of women in village meetings and trai nings, which were also due t o

No. of Parti cipants

Category Name of Training No. of trainings Female Male Chil dren Total

(A) Group

Strengthening

Samuh Shi vir 96 1,325 2,003 488 3,816

Samuh Mukhi ya + Federati on meetings

88 311 335 - 646

Mahi la Shivir 9 108 15 - 123

Jan Pratinidhi Sam elan 6 241 237 - 478

T otal 199 1,942 (37%)

2,848 (54%)

488 (9%)

5278

(B )Capacity

B uildi ng

T rainings for GVC’s and

associates

New GVC Trai ning 07 (23 GVC) 75 125 - 200

GVC R etrai ning 14 49 92 - 141

SPI and foll ow Up

28 SPI Follow-

ups + 2 New SPI (206+15 GVCs)

307 665 - 972

Accountant trai ning at 1. Zone level

2. Bl ock level 3. Unit level

31

04 07

4

- 05

201

46 119

-

- -

205

46 124

Women GVC Training at 1. Bl ock level

2. HO

15

01

518

41

84

-

-

-

602

41 Federat ion at

1. Training 2. Workshop

03 01

19 40

58 120

- -

77 160

Zonal worker (Staff)

1. Zonal worker t raini ng 2. Zonal worker m eeting

3 2

- 6

98 21

- -

98 27

GVC Samel an 1 40 120 - 160 Training on Government

Schemes 1. Government schem e

trai ning 2. Training on

MGNREGA

2

2

1

16

65

50

-

-

66

66

T otal 123 1,122

(63%)

1,915

(37%) - 3037

Grand Tot al

Grand Total (A+B) 322

3,064

(37%)

4,763

(57%)

488

(6%)

8,315


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changes, like int roduction of 50% reservation of women i n GVCs. Now there are 50 GVCs where women hol d key positions. A t raini ng of 3 days was also im parted to GVC

women m embers where an outs ide resource person conducted the trai ni ng. It mainl y aimed at enhanci ng the women members’ awareness on t heir rights and responsi bili ties

and also equipping them to discharge those responsibili ties.

Last year, a new init iati ve took pl ace in t he name of GVC Sammelan. The main aim behind organizi ng a gat hering of GVCs belonging to different blocks was to bring

commi ttees together at a comm on pl ace and share t heir experi ences. In the GVC Sammel an, both old committ ees and newly formed committees were i nvi ted. Aft er sharing their success stories, al l 28 participant GVCs sat together and prepared strategies to i ncrease the vill age i nstit utions li nkage with Panchayat and other government agencies.

Su pportin g People’s Initi atives (SPI)

This activi ty essenti ally i nvol ves hel ping the GVC’s undert ake and manage local development int erventi ons. At present, 339 are bei ng helped to appoint and monitor 1030

vill age vol unteers . These GVC’s are also responsible for payi ng t heir village and volunteers.

Accessing Government S chemes

Even though t he youth has several welfare schemes, they are often very di ffi cult to access both due to design and im plement ati on problems. The appli cation process i s also very

cumbersome maki ng it difficul t for people to access the schemes. Seva Mandi r conduct s trai nings for s elected vill age leaders on these schemes so that they can hel p thei r fellow

communit y m embers access benefit from t he schem es.

These training t each the villagers benefit s of various schemes, official channel to access

those, eli gibil ity crit eria in getting enrolled etc. In last few years , 100 people have been given t raini ng whi ch includes (1st time t raini ng and follow up t raini ng) and many of t hem are working to spread the informati on of government schemes and hel ping needy peopl e to get benefits of these schemes.

After receivi ng trainings on government schemes, part ici pants have sent 551 cases of 16

different schemes from which 64% have been sancti oned, 24% have been reject ed and 7% are i n t he pipeline. Hence, t he social benefi t gai ned by the communit y i s approximat ely of R s. 13, 42,800.

The Village Development Fund (Gram Vikas Kosh)

Duri ng the year 2010-11, the GVK grew at a rate of 8% in comparison t o previ ous year. On 31st of March’11, the t otal corpus am ount was Rs.35,938, 051. This growt h to fund


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was mainl y contri buted by blocks l ike B adgaon and Kot ra. Am ong the 620 GVKs, 85% have bank account s.

The composit ion of funds present a comparat ive anal ysis of growth i n GVK funds l yi ng

in different heads like: saving account, Fi xed Deposit, Loan, C ash In Hand, Loan, Cash in hand and block head et c. Almost 95% of fund is kept in a bank account, which is

equally distri buted between savings and fixed deposit s (savi ng account has 49% of money and FD has 46%). However, t his year s aw slight reduction of FD growth i n

compari son to savings prim aril y because of tax l evied on FD’s income of some GVKs. This year witnessed many i nstances of GVCs using t heir vil lage corpus for handli ng local development project s on their own. There are 103 numbers of usages took place. Duri ng

this year, 75 GVCs used thei r village corpus in managi ng t heir local development initiatives. The primary purposes of usage were past ureland management, sti pend

payment of village volunteers, agriculture, recruiting teachers at school, beari ng admini strative expenditure etc. During this year an amount of Rs. 384,589 were utilized i n supporti ng these acti vities.

14 loans amounti ng to Rs. 11, 53,800 were distributed during last year. The recovery rate was 77%.The l oan purposes incl uded those for microenterpri se, SHG loans, sickness loans, wel l-deepeni ng and purchase of fodder, livest ock, et c. The loaning is m ostl y done

to groups and within that the GVK lending to SHG has been most successful. From t he next year onwards SHG- GVK linkage groups will be given more pri ority.

In recent years, the growth in t he GVK fund has slowed down. Bul k of the contributi ons to t he GVK were made when people earned through the Seva Mandir initiated works. With t he slowing of Seva Mandi r initiat ed physical works t here is also a sl owing of

contri bution i n the GVK. The earnings from NREGA are so meagre that people that people are unabl e t o make any contributi on from that. Non-Seva Mandir work contri buted 39% of i ncome inflow into GVKs i.e. R s. 508,660, which is stil l an improvement from the past.

Independent GVC s are those from where Seva Mandir has withdrawn its signature from

the B ank account. During this year, the number of independent GVC cam e down t o 38 due to discrepancies in accounts. However, on access ing these independent GVC’s we real ized that t hey need more hand-holding. In t he comi ng years, highest pri orit y will be given on the fund management aspect of GVC . During t he year, s everal effort s were

made for updati ng of the ledger books and 50% of them were updat ed the next year will see emphasis on increasing the vi llager’s capacit y to manage t heir funds by increasing t he

capacit y of vill age level accountants and establi shing a decent ralized system of fund management.


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Conclusion The year of 2010-11 wit nessed peopl e’s increasing parti cipati on i n m onitoring of

government run projects. People have now started rai sing issues of their concern, especial ly related to vill age devel opm ent m atters i n the platform of local-self governance

i. e. Ward Sabha and Gram Sabha. Women participati on increased during this phase i n both trai nings and meeti ngs. However, t he funds util ization pattern is slow but an increase in usage of fund duri ng l ast year was felt . In the future days t o come more concentrat ion will be given to decent rali zed funds management at t he comm unity l evel.


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Natural Resources Development Progra mme

Seva Mandir’s work on restori ng and enhancing t he producti vity of t he natural resource base i n its work area dates back to 1970s. Land, water and forests pl ay a major role not

only i n strengthening sus tainabl e li velihoods but al so in contri buting to the development of social solidarity. Year 2010-11 is second year of the s ixth com prehensive plan of Seva Mandir. In t his year, on one hand we t ried to consolidat e our ongoing mature programm es, and on the other, we worked hard t o mai nstream new innovati ve i niti atives

like clean drinki ng water & sanitat ion, Clean Development Mechani sm (CDM), MGNREGA and ot her research project s. T here has been subst antial progress m ade

towards expanding our understandi ng on these new programm es at various levels across Seva Mandir.

Afforestation Much of the land in Seva Mandir’s work area is severely degraded. Widespread

encroachment of the commons, which consti tute about 73% of the l and in the region, has mostl y happened due t o weak norm s, management systems and institutions. T he

regeneration of t hese lands i s central to sustainabl e local development because of it s positi ve ecol ogical, economi c and socio-politi cal benefit s.

Common pastures and private wastelands In tot al, over the last 20 years, Seva Mandir has developed 3,031 hectares (ha) land

across 189 village past ures. The maj or benefit of work on past ureland is enhanced social cohesion and solidarity. T his has al so led to better protection, managem ent and equitable

dist ribution of grass and other usufructs am ong the participati ng fam ili es. Duri ng the last year, i n Jhadol, peopl e could harvest 1, 77,300 bundles of grass from 38 developed

pastures, whose monetary value comes to R s.5, 31,900. In 6 vill ages of Girwa block, 2,765 househol ds harvested 98, 000 kg grass worth Rs.2,88, 000. Thi s means on an

average, every househol d received 104 kg grass wort h Rs. 312. Against t he t arget of 245 ha, pl antation on fresh sit e was done on 202. 21 ha. Last year, 21 new sites of common village pastures and private non cultivable land covering an area of

242 ha were generated and advance acti on work li ke construction of boundary wall, soil-wat er conservation etc. were start ed, and even compl eted on 150 ha.

A fracti on of the tot al cost of pl antation (Rs.11. 50 per sapl ing) is funded by Make My

Trip, one of the l argest travel portals of India. Higher t han the t arget, tot al 2, 57,069 saplings were pl anted during rainy season 2010 wi th the support o f MMT. The agreement

with MMT has been renewed for next year, for pl anting 2, 00,000 sapl ings at an enhanced rate -R s 20 per pl ant.


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In February 2010, Seva Mandi r made a partnership with Parl e-G through Give Indi a for

the pl antati on of 3750 saplings i n 20.34 ha wasteland at Rs.15 per sapling. Total 4,200 saplings were plant ed during July - August 2010. In partnership with One World Group

Oxted (OWG), we com pleted t he pasturel and devel opment and 1,600 saplings were planted during t he monsoon of 2010 wi th the donation of R s. 1, 33,056. This year, Seva

Mandir planted 2,69,471 sapli ngs under the Hari t R ajas than program.

Nurseri es Seva Mandir has been following a decentral ized model of mai nt aining nurseries in t he vill ages through trai ning the farmers to obtai n sapli ngs proxim al t o the pl antation sites.

The annual nurseries are started i n June and plant s rai sed i n these nurseries are obtained in t he July next year. In t hese nurseries, saplings of sl ow growing tree species li ke neem,

Mahua, m ango, karanj, ber etc. are raised and m aintai ned. B amboo R hizome nurseries are start ed in February to obtai n saplings i n July month of next year (after 15 months). In these nurseries, onl y bamboo saplings are raised and m aintained. Duri ng June 2010, 15 Annual nurseries wit h a target o f 1, 75, 000 saplings were est abli shed in all the five

blocks. 13 R hizome nurseri es with the t arget of 1, 05, 000 saplings that were es tabli shed in Feb- March 2010 were mai ntained. Seven seasonal nurseri es with the target o f 70,000 saplings were establi shed in February 2011 in three blocks.

Like this year, we need to plant approximat ely 2,70,000 sapl ings. Accordingly t he nursery plan was revised. During the last year, total 24 nurseries wit h a target of

1,95,000 saplings were mai ntai ned and 1,52,559 saplings were recei ved for the plantat ion in Jul y 2010. To meet out the pl antation demand, we purchased 1,09, 951 sapli ngs from the Forest Depart ment and other sources.

Joint Forest Management The Joint Forest Management (JFM) programm e is impl emented i n collaboration wit h

Forest Department (FD), Seva Mandir and the vill age comm unity to protect, regenerat e the forests and distri but e benefi ts equit ably among the communit y members. One of

Raj asthan’s first JFMs was start ed by Seva Mandir in Shyampura vill age of Jhadol block in 1992 and since t hen Seva Mandir has supported 17 village Samuhs t o protect and manage about 1,900 ha of fores t l ands.

This programme has benefi tted the comm uniti es both economically and socially. In Jhabla vill age of Girwa block, 93 households harvested 95,000 kg grass wort h

Rs. 2,85,000 from the JFM. This means on an average, every household received 1, 021 kg grass. In Jhadol bl ock from select ed 21 JFM sites, people could harvest 1,93,100 bundles

of grass wort h Rs.8, 68, 950. JFM has al so been helpful in strengthening a number of vill age level inst itut ions to resolve m any encroachment and boundary disputes among

indivi duals and vi llages to devel op and manage sites and dist ribut e benefits. The major


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functi on of such a programm e is to retai n the spirit o f common l and managem ent and use and ecological conservati on.

Last year, we had set a target to devel op 290 ha of forestl and under JFM programme.

Plantat ion was compl eted on 192 ha. Closure of 50 ha was completed for JFM. Work i s ongoi ng on 165 ha.

For the year 2011, 83 ha of JFM sit es, all i n Kot ra bl ock has been sanct ioned and is bei ng

proposed t o be t aken up for advance act ion work i n the year 2011. The tripartite MoU of the same has been signed with the FD and Forest Prot ecti on Committees (FPCs). Tot al of 69 ha i n Girwa block is being proposed to be t aken up under JFM for t he next year.

Van Utt han Sangh (VUS) and Progress on CFR VUS is an independent federation of more t han 100 Forest Protect ion C ommi ttees, based

in Jhadol block. It organizes dial ogue and provides guidance and t echnical support on a wide range of forestry i ssues. VUS’ s monthl y meeti ngs were conducted on a regul ar basis. T his year the major thrust was to s treamline its acti viti es i n a syst ematic manner and as per t he constituti on. A special meeti ng of t he Sadharan Sabha (General B ody

Meeti ng) of VUS att ended by 123 persons representi ng constituent FPCs resolved to hol d elect ions for constit uting new VUS executi ve body in October. In the election, representatives of 64 FPC s participat ed and el ected 17 m ember management committ ee

of the Sangh. T he committ ee will also sel ect its executive body whi ch will be functional aft er March 2011.

The Forest Rights Act (FRA) enacted i n 2008 has t he provisi on of conferri ng rights on forest land (up to 4 ha) to the forest dwellers occupyi ng it til l 13th December 2005. There is a window avail able under FRA i n which, there is provisi on for com munity fores t

rights (CFRs). Seva Mandir and VUS have been struggling very hard and have had intense discussions with member FPCs and representati ves of Forest Rights C ommittees (FRCs) which are constituted at the vill age level for claiming CFR on the encroached area instead of individual cl aims.

With efforts of Seva Mandi r and VUS, CFR fil es were submitt ed in 75-gram sabhas wit h

additi onal evi dences, which were approved by the gram panchayat s. 72 out of these were submitted in t he B lock Development Officer’s offi ce for further processi ng. In February 2011, both Seva Mandir and VUS deci ded t o collaborate for enhancing

efforts for reali zation of C FRs with Foundati on for Ecological Sust ainabilit y (FES), which is working on issues of forest protection and conservati on in Udaipur. In t he first

week of March 2011, two days workshop was organi zed. In t his workshop an experienced member of Vasundhara, an NGO known for it s proven work on FRA and

CFRs in Orissa, shared his experiences and deliberat ed on possible ways under whi ch maxim um cases of CFRs can be realized. A team comprising members of Seva Mandir,


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FES and VUS also participated in a Nati onal workshop on “Management of C ommunit y Forest Resources” under FRA organized by Vasundhara i n the las t week of March 2011.

A three member team from National Forest Rights Act (NFRA) committee came t o

Udaipur from 22nd

to 24th

August. Seva Mandir and VUS m embers participated i n a workshop hel d in Tribal Research Institut e i n Udaipur. They di scussed probl ems relat ed

to procedural and veri ficat ion anomali es in Rajasthan stat e especially i n CFR relat ed cases. The NFR A committee i n its report expressed deep di ssati sfact ion over almost nil

progress in conferring titl es of CFR t o the communi ties. Land Cell Research

The aim of t his research is t o initi ate a com prehensive effort towards research, collaboration, advocacy and networking on is sues relat ed to common lands and

resources. For that, three organizations, i ncluding Seva Mandir are collaborating for collecting micro-level evidence wit hin t heir operati onal areas. The inducti on of staff and volunteers and t he Ram aj pi lot study fieldwork were done. Anot her vi llage-Dodawali’ s fi eld work is ongoi ng. In January, a staff member and three volunteers visited Krapavi s

organizat ion in Alwar for understandi ng and document ing their work on commons. Duri ng March, the research team also visited Jaisalmer where Lokhit Pashu Pal ak Sangh is the NGO partner in t he proj ect.

Study on CPRs under Rain fed Livestock Network (RL N)

FES st udy on commons i n 5 Vi llages of Jhadol Bl ock for conduct ion of 5 FGDs, one vill age schedule and 170 househol ds survey got compl eted with the support of one surveyor, and 4 volunteers. Two FGDs are stil l pendi ng.

Watershed Development

Watershed devel opm ent entails comprehensive soil and water conservation work to enhance the producti vity of bot h culti vable and non-culti vable land. Under t his, our objecti ve is to undertake di fferent activi ties of NR M in an int egrated manner. Watershed development has not only emerged as one of the s trongest programm es for enhancing

livelihood, it has also em erged as a tool t o build social cohesion and i nstit utions on a sustai nable basis.

Last year, watershed developm ent work against a t arget of treat ing 625 ha was complet ed

in 550 ha. Followi ng are the details of other watersheds in progress:

S.no. Watershed Acti viti es taken up last year Improvements observed

1 Chali Soil and wat er conservati on, well lini ng, direct s eeding of

1. Enhanced availabi lity of water in well s 2. Rajput and Gametis have come closer


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jetropha , plantati on of forest ry and horti culture saplings etc.

3. In C hali B hilwara cluster, out of 70 househol ds only two coul d produce sufficient food. After

wat ershed work only two households purchase food grains from the market , rest 68 households

are able produce suffi ci ent food grains. 2. Peeped Pl anting of thoor on boundary

wall around non cultivabl e and farm land. Soil and water

conservati on struct ures, tank renovation, well lini ng, direct seeding of j etropha, pl antat ion of Forest ry and horticult ure

saplings etc.

1. Better protection of l and from bl ue bull

(neel gai ) 2. Vegetable cul tivation has increased

3. Jhabla Soil and water conservation

structures, nal a bunding, well lining, direct seedi ng of

jetropha, plant ation of forest ry and horticult ure saplings, introduct ion of i mproved stoves, roof t op wat er

harvesting etc.

1. Rice cultivation has increased as a result of

farm bunding 2. Water availability improved at household level

as result of roof-top water harvesti ng st ructure 3. Grass product ion has i mproved after di ggi ng up of the trenches on barren hillocks 3.Part ici pation of women has gone up

4. Pareda Soil and wat er conservati on,

pl antation of hort icult ure saplings, crop development,

vegetable culti vation seed bank etc.

1. People have tried to improve quality in

NR EGA works after exposure to work done by Seva Mandir

2. More effort s of col laborati on with govt. and panchayat observed amongst people

Water Resou rce Development

Community L ift Irri gations

Against the target of 3 li fts, one was complet ed last year. In Rajpur, a backward t ribal vill age, the ent husiasm for li ft development of the local communi ty has been

overwhel ming. Contri bution from all the benefi ciari es was received in t ime. The l ift was commi ssioned well before rabi season and farmers are expected to harvest bumper crops of wheat, mustard and castor in the 12 ha com mand area. On the contrary, in village Dob, the lift was st arted earlier but due to del ay in collecting beneficiary contri butions, work

on this lift is expect ed to be compl eted onl y by the first quart er of next year.

The partner farmers are able to t ake two to three crops in a year. Thi s has im proved availability of food grains and cash crops at t he end of beneficiaries. In village Samited,

we had commi ssioned a LI last year and as a result 11 farmers cul tivat ed green gram i n


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summer season. Seeds of im proved K-851 variet y were provided to t he farmers by Seva Mandir and they could earn Rs.300 to 7, 200 by selling the produce.

Water Harves ting Structures (WHS)

Due t o undulat ing terrain of this area, most of the received sub-optimal rain water is lost

as runoff. Harvesting of r ain wat er is of paramount importance to ensure adequate availability of rain water t hroughout t he year, especiall y for the l ocal livest ock

popul ati on. Last year, work on Hasreta WHS was in progress. This st ructure is being built t o meet three kinds of li velihood requi rement of the peopl e. Around 8 ha l and of 12 househol ds

will be brought under irri gation. Here, gravity flow system of irrigati on is bei ng promoted which will save cost of fuel/ elect ricity requi red to pump t he water, savi ng

carbon emi ssions. Round t he year, it will provide drinki ng wat er to livestock of more than 85 households in t he vil lage. It will also recharge four wel ls i n its influence zone, which will enhance availability of water for drinking and agri culture for around 35 households. Till September, t he construction of earthen wall and masonry wall were

complet ed and const ructi on of 150 meter irrigat ion channel was in progress. Since som e of t he construction area of thi s WHS was report ed to be near the forest land, the FD was requested to complet e the remaining work.

In village Amba Ka Vela people have been dem anding to build a WHS si nce long. We have been tryi ng to get t his struct ure const ructed under NREGA. However, thi s year Seva

Mandir decided to st art work on thi s due t o the delay in t he construction. The foundat ion digging was start ed in February 2011. At Dr. M.S.Mehta Rural T rai ning C entre campus, work to construct a water harvesting structure was started and completed during t he

period under report. Repai r work was al so undertaken on Morni a WHS built in year 2006-07 under NREGA. Community-based Integrated Dri nking Water and Sanitation (Arghyam supported)

This i niti ative intends to enhance access of the dwellers i n 12 set tlem ents across all rural

blocks of Seva Mandir to clean drinking water and sanitation. The 3 year i ntervention i s making efforts t o ident ify and promote reliable technologi cal alternatives, and encourage behavioral change through demonstrat ion, knowledge building and cont inuous dialogue with communities. The project has an integrated and village-based approach and i s

worki ng on t hree components: Cl ean Dri nking Water, Sanitation and Ground Water Management.

Baseline survey of 2,200 househol ds was com pl eted to understand t he current situation of

wat er sources. In additi on, analysis of pre-monsoon water qualit y of a few random samples in all vill ages through testing kit s i ndicated presence of fl uoride, ammonia and

dissol ved soli ds above the permissible limit.


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Cl ean Dri nking Water Ext ensive village consultations assisted to identi fy cri tical drinki ng water sources for hamlets, and planning of appropriat e interventions to provide cl ean wat er. The identified

technological sol utions include const ruct ing open well-based tank syst ems, repai ring of handpum ps, building com munit y rooftop rai nwater harvest ing, and providing i ndividual

bio-sand fi lters. Wherever required and feasible, a recharge system is al so bei ng construct ed for cri tical sources to augment thei r reliability and sus tainability. This year,

the execut ion of vari ous syst ems, li ke 13 well rest orati on and tank system s, 15 rai nwater harvesti ng structures, 13 handpump repairs and 33 bio-sand fil ters was i nitiated, whi ch aft er completion will benefit a t otal of 738 fam ili es. In villages like Gawar and Si svi, communities agreed to approach the panchayat to rest ore thei r existing water suppl y

system s.

Two exposure visi ts were organized wit h the purpose of facilitati ng leaning on i ntegrat ed work of drinking water and sanitati on, and giving exposure t o technical and management alternati ves. A t otal 70 mem bers from 11 vill ages partici pated in the visi ts. A handpum p repair training of village yout hs was organi zed during the peri od with an aim to develop

skil led resource in rural areas. In additi on, an exposure vi sit was organi zed for t he part ner communities t o show t he work on i ntegrated clean drinking water, s anitation and hygiene.

Sanitati on The focus of t his com ponent i n this year was t o generat e accept ance for the technology of

Eco-San (compost ) t oilets among communities and our staff, fol lowed by construction of demonstration t oilets i n each village. The knowl edge buildi ng on com post t oilets was faci lit ated t hrough an exposure visit to 3 NGOs in Gujarat for the members of staff and

youth cadre. This and t he follow-up village meetings convinced two households to opt for new t echnol ogy. Further, an eco-san toilet design workshop was held which enabled engineers to make t heir toil et designs user-fri endly by i ncluding the i nputs from users. B y end of this year, we received proposal s for 22 eco-san toil ets from 11 out of 12 project

vill ages. A puppet show was designed by Kumbhal garh team and was organized i n different ham lets for increasing awareness on personal and communit y hygiene and

sanitation. Ground Water Management The visit to Kut ch l ast year helped us reali ze the significance of the not ion of

parti cipatory groundwater management i n our regi on. We coll aborated with Ari d Comm uniti es and Technologies (ACT), an experienced non-profit based in Kutch. ACT

will trai n a cadre of about 24 rural youths and buil d capaci ties of Seva Mandi r staff in hydro-geology, and assi sted in preparing and publishi ng bookl ets of local hydro-geology

and best practices.


15

Two 1-day trai nings and one 3-days trai ning was hel d on hydro-geol ogy for youth cadre. Each trai ning was foll owed up by different exercises of data coll ecti on for developing

groundwater maps. Total 247 wells have been i dentified for monitoring of groundwater. A few of the monitori ng well s were furt her select ed from each vi llage for detail ed

chemical t esti ng. Samples of 51 sources from 9 vil lages were test ed for 17 par ameters. In a majority wells, conduct ivity, TDS and hardness were reported to be high.

Geo-physi cal assessment s were done in 2 villages- Patharpadi and Majera. Pump test s

were conducted i n 9 villages of 5 blocks duri ng this reporting period. The test was done on one source in each vi llage i n gui dance of ACT. Building in-house capacity on groundwater and applicati on of hydro-geology is a vital component of the revi sed strategy of the project. In regard, an orientation on t he subject was organized on

September 15-17, 2010 for the entire team of NRM.

Well deepening Rai nfall in Udaipur and Raj samand di stri cts in 2009-2011 remained below the normal, leading to drought-like conditions in t his year. In response, the organi zation undertook work for deepeni ng and cleani ng of wells in a few crit ical vill ages. The activities were

undertaken i n May and June months, wit h the main objecti ve to improve accessi bility of dist ressed households and thei r livestock. The intervention was done i n 16 villages. 18 wel ls were covered under the proj ect, in majorit y of which the organi zation provi ded

support whil e t he physical l abour was cont ributed by villagers. Timely support was able t o reduce the water problem t o a cert ain extent by creati ng

drinking water facilities for 455 households and thei r livestock. In some wells, the water level increased instantaneously by about 2 to 3 ft . Where wat er l evels rose consi derably, the drudgery of women al so reduced who otherwise had to travel long distance t o fetch

wat er.

“C atchment Area St udy - Study and Developm ent of a detailed Watershed Treatment Plan in the catchment area and evoluti on of best geo-hydrol ogical practices to improve the im pact of water shed programmes on the communit y in Udaipur and Raj asmand

dist ricts of Raj asthan”

This study was approved by EED through CWS (C entre for World Solidarity) in Jul y 2010 to st udy and devel op a detailed Wat ershed Treatment Plan in the catchm ent area and evolution of best practi ces to t ake advantage of geo-hydrology for improving t he impact of watershed programm es. The project is in the initial entry point phase. Next year

the st udy wi ll be t aken up in an intensive manner to work out a det ailed wat ershed pl an incorporat ing hydro-geological aspects.

Agriculture

In 6th com prehensive plan, it was planned to undert ake agricul tural activi ties in an integrated m anner t o reach 5000 households in 28 selected clusters. The aim is t o harness


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profi tability of im proved natural resources for enhanci ng farm based livelihood of the households sust ainably. B aseli ne data and informati on of these selected househol ds was

collected for desi gni ng of appropriate interventions and monitoring. Foll owing activi ties were taken up with the selected households in t he peri od under report.

Horti culture The mai n objective of hort iculture pl antat ion is to diversi fy farm ing systems for providing al ternative source of l iveli hood and nut rition to the farm households and t o

encourage tree based cropping system. During the peri od under report, 648 farmers planted 10,169 fruit sapli ngs. The planted saplings included fruit species l ike mango, aonla, guava, lemon and sapota (cheeku).

Veget able cultivat ion Use of veget able i s traditionally very l ow by t ri bal people we are working wit h, a major

reasons behind t he malnourishm ent and their susceptibi lity t o diseases. We are encouraging our group of farmers to grow vegetables on both small and medium scale. In small scal e initiative we promote vegetable nurseries. In the medium scale endeavor, farmers are trained t o grow veget ables on an intensi ve and professional way followi ng

sabji-wadi techni que. Last year more than 648 farmers cultivat ed vegetabl es in summer (zai d) and Kharif seasons. Farmers could reap bot h nutriti onal and income benefits from this venture. Looking to a vast potential of vegetabl e culti vation i n the area, we are

gearing up for expansion.

Vermicomposting Farmers in our area do not have enough farm yards manure (FYM), hence the put FYM once in t hree years in thei r fi elds, i n significantly low quantities. We have been supporti ng farmers to const ruct beds for fol lowi ng vermi compost ing t o enable farm ers to

convert their farm waste and ani mal refuse i nt o highly producti ve manure. 253 farm ers in 18 villages were covered during t he last year.

Crop Productivity Im provement Programme The main obj ecti ve of this activity is t o im prove the productivity of local field crops by parti cipatory selecti on of appropriate crop variet ies suit able to local agro-clim ati c

conditi ons. Seed of such new com posite variety i s provided t o the farmers for fi eld testing. If found sui table, it is multiplied following year. Duri ng l ast zaid and khari f seasons, s eed of green gram mai ze, urad (black gram ), til (sesam e) and guar (cluster bean) was introduced. In winter (rabi) s eason improved vari eties of wheat , barley,

mustard and gram were i ntroduced for m ulti plication. 1,019 farmers were covered in t he Khari f season and 1, 867 in the Rabi season under t his activity last year.

Seed Banks Seed banks have emerged as a very import ant comm unity driven activit y under whi ch farmers parti cipati ng in the crop trials share thei r s eeds and experiences wi th other fellow

farmers. Selected farmers test new com posite varieties on thei r fields. T hey ret urn a pre


17

decided quantity of seeds in the local seed banks, whi ch is issued t o other farmers for furt her mult iplicati on. A t otal of 60 seed banks are current ly functi oning across t he

blocks.

Animal Husbandary Under this programme, livestock vacci nations cum t reatment camps are arranged twice a

year in al most all sel ected vil lages/ clusters during summer and wi nter seasons. T he camps are ai med at reducing t he ri sk of di seases l ike Foot and Mout h Di sease (FMD),

Bl ack quarter (BQ) and Hemorrhagi c septi cemia (HS). Apart from thi s, in the cam ps male cattl e and goat are cast rated t o make them more producti ve. Animal s are al so diagnosed for pregnancy, treat ed for mi nor ailments and infert ili ty and inseminated. Minor surgeri es are also performed. In t he period under report, 74 cam ps were organized

in which approximat ely 9,190 animals were vaccinat ed and treat ed.

Breed Improvem ent Initiative Duri ng the peri od under report, we had i ntensive di scussi on wit h the comm unity for taking up pil ots for breed im provement in small ruminants. Based on ground preparation, in two vi llages Koj on Ka Guda i n Gi rwa and Mornia in Jhadol, we i ntroduced breeding

bucks of im proved Sirohi breed. Five bucks have been provided i n each of t hese vil lages. We also provided 2 bucks in Helpia, one i n Ramaj and 3 in B hiroti vill age. In Kojo ka gura village, 37 kids were born from t he introduced breeding bucks.

Other interventions Ber is an im portant fruit species growing under dry land conditi ons. This year, buddi ng

was undertaken on 677 local ber trees of 128 farmers in three villages and more than 60% of t he buddi ngs were successful. Sel ected farmers harvested fodder thi s year and next year t he budded t rees should produce fruit.

In collaboration with International C rop Research Instit ute on Sem i Ari d T ropics (ICRISAT), fertilizers contai ning micronutrients were dem onst rat ed in three villages. T he crops appeared healt hy and t he yiel d was si gnifi cantly higher so further work is expected

in t his area next year.

Last year, Seva Mandi r was sanctioned a project by the Ministry of Rural Development to converge agri cultural producti on enhancement activities with NREGA. Under thi s project, 86 farmers who were irrigating t heir lands t hrough 2 water harvest ing st ructures construct ed by Seva Mandir previously under NR EGA were selected. Of them , 45

farmers undertook interventions on winter crops and 35 undert ook intensive vegetabl e cultivati on during the winter season. A pilot was also undertaken to i ntroduce dri p

irrigati on techniques i n vegetable culti vation. 11 farm ers were sel ected to undertake breed i mprovements of local goats. These farmers were trai ned to rear and maint ain t he

bucks of t he im proved local ly suit able Si rohi breed. The encouraging ini tial results of these interventions could becom e a model for convergence under MGNREGA.


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Climate Change

Cl ean Devel opment Mechanism (CDM) project was start ed by Seva Mandir in 2009 t o assist households i n rural areas t o shi ft to im proved energy techni ques and practices through support from carbon finance. The preparation for CDM was st art ed for two

technologies: C ookstoves and Solar Photovol taic lamps. During this reporting period, these preparation act ivities were conti nued. A demographi c survey was done for 26, 076 families in 137 villages, and i nvol ved

collection of a wide range of i nformat ion. Handling the volum e of data was a big challenge, and took us almos t t he entire year to finali ze it. The baseline survey was aim ed

to scienti fi cally assess the current consumpt ion of wood and kerosene by the parti cipati ng households. The exercise for wood involved about 500 famili es and for kerosene about 900 famili es. It reveal ed that each fam ily consumes about 70 kg of wood every week.

In t hi s year 3 models of st oves of two m anufacturers were gi ven for use in rot ation t o fam ilies in 12 villages. The users’ feedback was cons tantly shared wit h t he manufacturers

and incorporated as appropriat e by them in subsequent designs. Thi s process graduall y led to final ization of t he stove desi gned by a social enterprise- ISquareD. The model,

“Maha Aadi Shakti Chulika”, has been now select ed for t he CDM project. It has a therm al efficiency of 30. 8%, and will reduce the usage of fuel wood by 50%. Thi s will

reduce drudgery of women and chi ldren from wood col lect ion and will have less ill-effect on their healt h. Moreover, t he shift on improved st oves will mean an annual savi ng of 2.35 t ons of CO2 em issi on per fami ly.

After the basel ine of kerosene consum ption, it was found t he CDM proj ect of replacing kerosene lam ps with solar light s is not economically feas ible through the current

methodologi es. Therefore, this project is at present kept on hold, but we are constantl y monit oring t he changes in methodologies t o jum p in whenever appropriate.

Following this, the Gold St andard Stakehol der C onsult ation was held on 25

th February, a

requirement for Gold Standard regi stration. It aim ed to share t he project details wi th t he stakeholders and incorporate t heir feedback in desi gning the project. The meet ing was attended by about 550 parti cipants most of whom were women who had used the stoves, parti cipated in vill age meetings and were i nterested i n t he project. The meeting turned out

to be a huge success- women asked questions regardi ng the st ove, norm s of CDM etc. The cookstove usage was also demonst rated in the m eeting. T he report of the meeting has

been submi tted to the Gold Standard Regist ry for review, and shall be submi tted for fi nal listing once the queries are cleared.

An encouraging devel opm ent i s t hat EED has shown interest to support som e of our pre-

project expendit ure which ot herwi se will have to be invest ed by Seva Mandir. Moreover,


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we are also i n dialogue with EED for the forward pur chase of CERs, which wi ll enable us to implement the project.

Research on Clim ate Change Proofing In t his year, a research st udy was undertaken in August-Sept ember’10 to understand t he regional climate change trends and incorporat e them in our local devel opment s trat egies.

The research was done in col laboration with Alt erra, Wageningen University, Net herlands, with support from ICC O. It was purposed to understand t he climat e trends

through interact ions with communities and triangulate the results wi th projecti ons from downscaled regional climate projection models and informat ion from sci entific s tudies. The s tudy was done i n 5 vill ages from 3 blocks- Jhadol , Kherwara and Badgaon, i n which 2 int ensive consultat ions were held wit h them. This study, although had l imitati on

in t erms of availabilit y of appropriat e model s, provided us a useful tool to dialogue wit h communities on local cl imatic impacts and adaptati on strategies. We hope t o modify and

use t he approach to undert ake such conversati ons with our ot her partner communities.

Mah atma Gandhi Nation al Rural Employment Gu arantee Act

(MGNREG)

This year, the Raj asthan Governm ent issued guideli nes and selection criteria for appointi ng NGOs as PIA in MGNREGA. We subm itted our applicati on to the district

authorities at Udaipur, in June. In a m eeting hel d a few months ago in Zil la Pari shad Udaipur, t he name of Seva Mandir was announced amongst t he li st of PIAs. Next year Seva Mandir shall be abl e to work as a PIA on the proposal s approved in t he Gram

Sabhas. However, i n Raj samand, the dist rict admini stration has not yet fi nalized t he

process of sel ecting PIAs. We are endeavori ng to get this done soon. Like last year, thi s year t oo, al l t he blocks actively took part in the Gram Sabhas to plan appropri ate NR M

acti viti es for di ffer ent villages and al so got these proposals endorsed in t he Gram Sabhas. In 83 village panchayats of Udaipur and Rajsamand distri cts, 530 proposals of works of

communit y and individual nat ure were endorsed by t he gram sabhas .

Other Initiatives at NRD

NAIP-ICAR Project on A griculture bi odiversity Seva Mandi r is involved in a project “Harm onizing Biodivers ity C onservati on for Livelihood Enhancement” under national Agri culture Innovati on Project of the Indi an

council of agri culture Research (ICAR ). Two villages in our area-Chanawada (Gi rwa) and Som (Jhadol ) were sel ected under this project. One village Netawala (t ehsil

Val labhnagar) was select ed by MPUAT for studying local plant, animal and fi sh geneti c biodiversity. Duri ng this period, a farmer’ s fair was organized on 9th June at the Directorate of

Ext ension, MPUAT, and Udaipur. In thi s fair a number of farmers displayed several local


20

cultivars of pl ants and fish genetic resources. A few dem ons trations usi ng local cultivars of di fferent crops were organized in both C hanawada and Som vil lages. In C hanawada,

ornamental fish culture was int roduced. In September a group of scient ists from National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NB AGR), Karnal visi ted proj ect vill ages t o asses s

livestock diversity. Scientist s from NBAGR are expected to make field vi sits to collect more detail ed informat ion in next few m ont hs. Farmer fiel d days and cattl e shows were

organized in Som and Chanawada villages in January 2011. The anim als brought by t he farmers were j udged by t he scient ists and the farmers bringi ng t he best animal s were

awarded.

UNDP-MoRD Project on MGNREGA convergence This project is bei ng taken up in Koj on Ka Guda and Morni a in Jhadol to enhance

productivi ty by converging assets (WHSs) built under MGNREGA wit h agricultural acti viti es. Last year, i nterventions on horticulture, veget able cultivati on usi ng dri p

irrigati on syst em, vermi compost, organi zation of l ivestock camps etc. were taken up. To introduce im proved till age practices, we provided 62 improve iron plough t o the farmers. For spraying of agro-chemical s to overcom e pests and diseases, 38 Knapsack sprayers were also provided. 22 water tanks were construct ed in bot h vil lages for i rri gation. We

plan t o l ink up veget able cultivati on wi th drip irri gation system. Implementation of al l t he agricul tural activities in an integrated manner l ed to emergence of a clear t rend of positi ve changes in agricult ure and all ied fields i n these two proj ect vill ages.

ICRISAT-MoRD Model wat ershed ICRISAT has approved devel opm ent of a m odel watershed at Dob-Nevaj funded by t he

Ministry of Rural Development. Last year, a few crop trials, glyrecedia (a legumi nous perennial plant ) pl antati on and recording of weather paramet ers was t aken up. Treatment of 82 ha forestland was initiated i n the period under report.

Research on Backyard Poul try (BYP) Under R ain Fed Livestock i niti ati ve, Seva Mandir has been i nvolved in research on

backyard poultry. Thi s acti vity i s being anchored by WASSAN, Hyderabad. Mahad (Kot ra) and Beda (Kherwara) were selected under for research. In the period under the

report , a detailed household survey was conducted to know various dimensi ons associat ed wit h t he B YP. T his data is being analyzed to find ways to enhance productivi ty and li velihood cont ribution of BYP. 60 households were select ed for poult ry intervention and de-wormi ng of birds in Beda vi llage was compl eted. We are in t he

process of fill ing up mont hly monitori ng sheets of all of s elected househol ds whi ch will record and monitor dynamics of poult ry production at t he household level.

Capacit y buil ding Number of trainings and other programmes like exposure visits, fairs etc. were organi sed in t he peri od under report. Fi gure i n perent hesis indicat es the number of part icipants:


21

Block Afforestati on JFM-

VUS Agriculture

Watershed and water

resource

Other

B adgaon 4 (70) 0 4 (96) 2 (60)

Girwa 1 (46) 0 2 (65) 2 (54)

Jhadol 2 (535) 0 1 (62) 0

One chetana Shi vir for Som and

B hamti villages 110). One exposure (to PEDO Dungarpur) for Som and Bhamti vil lages.

Kherwara 9 (182) 8 (149) 12 (397) 3 (270)

Kot ra 1 (77) 1 (42) 0 1 (34) 1 (120) worl d envi ronment day

cel ebrati on

Kum bhalgarh 0 3 (130)

Unit 0 0 1 (35) 0 1 (25) training on hydrogeol ogy by ARGYAM

Conclusion

All i n al l, t his was an activi ty-fill ed year for t he nat ural resource managem ent

programm e. The new i nit iati ves like CDM and convergence with MGNR EGA took shape while the exist ing programmes made progress in t heir respective domai ns. Almost

programm es are moving forward and proving their wort h towards improving livelihood of t he people and strengt hening local coll ecti ves and i nstituti ons. We are trying to share

our learni ng with the larger discourse li ke NREGA and Watershed Development initiative of the state governm ent.

Women’s Empowerment Program

For more than t wo decades, Seva Mandir has been working t owards t he re-ordering of gender relati ons t o make them more just and equitable. And in recent years, the results of that can be seen i n t he growi ng activeness of the wom en’s groups in m aking their fam ilies and communities more equitous incl udi ng the diffi cult and conservati ve spaces.

Social Empowerment Duri ng thi s peri od, a lot of effort s were di rected towards st rengthening women’ s groups,

panchayat level associat ions and women resource centres. At present t here are 480 groups with a mem bership of above 14, 000 women, 29 panchayat level associ ations and

9 wom en resource cent res.


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Panchayat L evel Associ ations

The women’s groups in certain selected panchayats have federated t o form panchayat level associations (PLAs). In this period, of the 31 PLAs last year, two were cl osed due t o

improper functioning. Last year, the bimont hly m eeti ngs of PLAs were held regularly and the mem bers also participated i n trai nings and other capacity buil ding initiatives. 10

trai nings of t he PLA leaders were organized attended by 412 women l eaders and 22 cast e panchayat l eaders. The t rai nings in Badgaon, Girwa and Jhadol block focused on legal

rights and act s rel ated t o wom en li ke dowry, domestic vi olence and ownershi p, cultural norms affecti ng women, diffi cult ies faced in resol vi ng cases rel ated t o gender based violence and access to government programmes like NREGA, Anganwadi centres etc. The trai nings i n Kot ra block mainl y focused on evaluati ng past work and form ul ating a

plan of act ion for upcomi ng years.

The Alsigarh PLA i n Girwa bl ock dealt with and resol ved around 16 cases of domest ic violence due to alcoholism. T he PLAs in Kherwara addressed and resolved many cases related to gi rls education, domestic violence et c. The PLAs i n Badgaon block continued dialogue with the cast e panchayat leaders to bring changes i n customary laws affecting

women. Women’s Resource Centers (WRCs)

One of main duties of WRCs is to work wit h caste panchayats and ot her i nformal and form al i nstituti ons to create a space for women’ s voices. In this period, of t he 10 WRCs,

one WRC cent re at Birot hi panchayat of Jhadol block was cl osed due t o improper functi oning. Thi s year 92 new cases were regist ered in these 9 centres, o f whi ch 79 were resolved and 13 are ongoing.

Duri ng this period, 2 training programm es for the women runni ng WRCs were organized. The fi rst was attended by 55 women leaders and aimed at providi ng knowledge on legal rights and act s rel ated to women for dowry, domestic vi olence and land ownership. T he

second training was attended by 33 women l eaders and it aimed at di scussing norms of caste panchayats whi ch adversel y affect women and preparing a set of revised norm s

which wi ll be further discussed with caste panchayat leaders in coming m onths. Gender trai nings

In order to create an enabl ing environm ent for wom en in t heir fami ly and comm unity, regular trainings on gender sensi tization for caste panchayat leaders and adolescents are

organized.

Cast e panchayat l eaders In t his period 2 t raini ngs for the caste panchayat leaders from two WRC l ocati ons were

organized. 45 leaders partici pated i n t hese trainings. The firs t t raini ng focused on gender


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issues and laws related to women and t he second focused on probl ems of adolescent s regardi ng education, migration and the role of caste panchayat leaders i n t hese issues.

An i ntensive effort with caste panchayat was conti nued in 10 vill ages of Badgaon bl ock.

To i dentify those cases of domest ic viol ence and desertion, which didn’t get response from the caste panchayat , a survey was conducted i n Dhar and Jogio ka guda PLA area.

Through the survey i n the 10 villages, 28 such cases were i dentified.

In order to put forward these cases to caste panchayat, two publi c hearings were organized on 4th & 20th Decem ber 2010, in Jogi o ka Guda and Dhar vi llage of Badgaon block, respect ively. In bot h these public hearings, 14 women – 6 in Jogio ka guda and 8 in Dhar vill age, present ed their cases. The present ation was fol lowed by an intense

discussi on amongst the cas te panchayat leaders. After a lot o f refl ecti on, the cast e panchayat l eaders resolved 4 cases, of which 3 women have settl ed with t heir husbands

and 1 woman has recei ved divorce. Subsequently, three foll ow up meetings were hel d with cast e panchayat leaders in each of these clusters t o discuss further on the remaini ng cases of desert ion, as a result of which 4 more cases were resol ved. So, out of the 28 cases surveyed, till date 8 cases have been resolved and 20 cases are still ongoing,

Adolescent t rainings Duri ng this period 6 trainings for the adolescent s were organized which i ncluded 4

trai nings for boys and 2 for gi rls. 138 adolescents partici pated i n these trainings. These trai nings mainly focused on gender, l egal rights of wom en, informat ion on FIR, court procedures, acts rel ated to vi olence, migration and various government schemes for

youths. Minimi zing the Gender Gap (Plan Engendered Program)

The project ‘Engendered! M inimizing Gender Gap through Instituti onal Mai nstreaming, Grass root Init iat ives and Advocacy’ is being implement ed i n 30 communi ties of Kherwara bl ock. The details of activities undertaken are gi ven below:

Interventi ons with staff a. Training on communication and gender: A four day trai ni ng program for the staff was organized in June’10 in Gairsi an, Uttrakashi with the obj ecti ve t o enhance the communication and docum entati on skills of t he staff. 2 block l evel st aff, 5 zonal staff and 1 unit level staff of Seva Mandi r partici pated in t he traini ng.

b. T rai ning on Gender: A three day refresher trai ni ng on gender was organi zed for the

zonal staff (Gender Focal Point Persons) and Youth Resource Centre leaders, i n September’10, i n Orient al Palace, Udaipur. 26 people parti cipated in the t rai ni ng.

Interventi ons with adolescents


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a. Bimont hly m eeting of the gender monitors: During t his period 8 bi-monthly review meeti ngs of the gender m onitors was conducted at the bl ock level.

b. Training on gender: A 3- day refresher training on gender was organi zed i n

Oct ober’10, at Kaya training cent er, att ended by 25 gender moni tors.

c. T raining on communication and documentation: A 3 day training program me was organized for t he gender moni tors from in July’10, at Kaya t raini ng center, t o enhance

documentation and communication skills of gender monitors, attended by 39 gender monit ors. A 9-day theatre workshop was also organized i n June’10 at Kojawara, attended by 18 boys and gi rls. It was decided t o train gender monitors as m aster trainers and 25 gender monitors parti cipated in t he first training of t he seri es, organized i n February’11.

On 25th

November’10, a 1- day campaign was organized in Kalyanpur zone of Kherwara block, which focused on hi ghlight ing issues related to education, migrati on and viol ence

of young boys, girls and women, attended by 130 people. d. Life Skill Training: 2 resi dential training programs on l ife skills were organized i n May’10, attended by 65 gender m onitors. T he focus of t he t raini ng was to provi de

informati on on 10 life skills li ke probl em solving, decision making, relationship buildi ng. e. Training on tail oring: Based on demand by young girl s, a mont h long resi dential

trai ning program was held in May-June’10, at a traini ng centre i n Koj awada. 40 girl s from village Kojawada, Pareda and Sagawara parti cipated in t he t raini ng. Among t hese a group of 15 girl s expressed interest in est abli shing t heir own tailoring business a follow

up training was organized for them in July’10. f. T raining on IEC development: A workshop on IEC devel opment was organized for the

gender moni tors in October-November’10, t o develop IEC mat erial related to educat ion and migration issues of adolescents, for the “ Internati onal fortnightl y campai gn to st op violence against women’ duri ng 25 November to 10 December’10. 24 boys and gi rls parti cipated in the training.

Interventi ons with communit y a. Training of t he panchayat l evel association leaders: 4 trainings for the Cl uster Associ ation Leaders were organized. A t otal of 120 women leaders participat ed in t he trai nings, whi ch ai med at provi di ng them knowl edge about legal ri ghts and acts rel ated t o women like dowry and dom estic violence. The wom en also discussed the t ype of cases

coming to t hem at the WRC centres.

b. Training of t he cast e panchayat leaders: A t raini ng of the caste leaders of the Kherwara block was organized in April’10 at Kaya t raining center. 25 leaders part icipat ed in t he

trai ning. It focused on hi ghlighti ng the problems of the adolescents regarding educat ion and mi grati on and t he exploitation t hey face during and after migrating.


25

c. Campai gns: In t his period vi llage level awareness campaigns were held in 3 vill ages t o stop violence against women in November-December’10. A total of 210 people

parti cipated i n these cam paigns incl uding school children, GVC mem bers, panchayat members, women leaders and s taff from Seva Mandir. Each of these groups i dentified t he

speci fic issues relat ed to education and mi grati on and deci ded t o put it forward to Panchayat and Government representat ives on 10th December’10.

Process Documentati on In order to review the progress of t he plan engendered programme, process documentation exercise was undertaken in October’10. For this, 8 i n-depth personal interviews of gender monit ors & st aff involved and 4 focus group discussi ons wit h gender monit ors, GVC leaders, YRC vol unt eers and cluster associ ati on l eaders was

conducted. A total of 80 peopl e including staff, gender monitors, GVC leaders, YRC volunteers and cluster associ ation leaders parti cipated in the process. The process

documentation reflect ed that there have been a lot o f changes in atti tudes and practices related to gender, i n people i nvolved in t he project, especially am ong gender monitors, YRC vol unteers and staff of Seva Mandir. B esides, di fferent st akeholders like women’ s groups, caste panchayat , PR Is et c have become sensiti ve towards i ssues of adolescent s

and therefore putti ng efforts for addressi ng thei r issues. SRIJAN (YRSHR) Network, Rajasthan

Young Peopl e’s R eproductive and Sexual Health (YRSHR) network al so know n as

“SRIJAN” is a collaborative e ffort o f MAMT A - H ealth Insti tute for Mother and Chil d

and stat e level NGOs. Seva Mandir is a S tate Facil itating A gency (Secreta riat) of the

network for R ajast han state s ince 2007. A three day t raini ng programme for yout h leaders

was held i n June’10, in J aipur. T he training focused on t he life skill education. 25 yout h

leaders parti cipat ed in the t raini ng. T wo persons from JAT AN Mr. Kailash Br ijw asi and

Mr. Anshum an Chatturvedi facilitat ed the training programm e. It was a di stri ct level meet

o f the SR IJAN Partners; youth leaders from 10 di fferent dist ricts of R ajast han parti cipated in t he training programme. Duri ng the month of May and June’10, 9 district

level meet s of the youth leaders was organized at di ffe rent l ocations of the st ate. A total

o f 190 parti cipants were pres ent i n the meets w hich focused on mainly li fe skill educati on

and other rel evant issues.

Economic Empowerment

Duri ng the report ing peri od a lot of ef fort s w ere di rected tow ards vi sion development and

capacit y buildi ng of sta ff as well as SH Gs. T he profit distribution was done for the firs t

time as a result of which many SHG s raised thei r monthl y savings and accountants

honorarium. T he vision of the SH G programme w as revised, one of the m os t important

achievement s of thi s period. T he activities initiated duri ng this per iod are as foll ows:


26

Operating Self Help Groups

Current st atus of SHGs At present there are 528 SHGs wi th a members hip of 7,981. During t his period 53 new

SHGs were formed and 19 SH Gs w ere cl osed, as they w ere not func tioning effect ively. The records of t hese SHGs are maint ained by 144 account ants. T he accounts of all 528

SHGs have been computeri zed.

In this period the discus sion on clus ter format ion was started in select ed SH Gs of al l

blocks. In Kumbhalgarh, 7 SHGs clust ers are functional from l ast one year and therefore

furt her di scussion was carri ed out with t hem t o st rengthen their processes and systems. In

the U rban block, 2 c lusters of SHGs were formed in Pul a and regul ar m onthly meeti ngs

have been sta rted w ith t hese clust ers. In t he next year 15 cl usters of SH Gs woul d be

promoted.

Fi nanci al Status of SHGs The net ow ned fund of SHG s t ill March’11 is Rs. 2,11,14, 060 The total s avings st ands at

Rs. 1, 90, 55, 983, cash at bank R s. 60, 22, 682, cas h in hand Rs. 11, 14, 930 and t he

loan outst anding Rs. 1, 51, 73, 804. The savings to loan ratio is almost 1:1 whi ch

indicat es that mem bers are rotating all thei r savi ngs for credit. It is 2: 1 in G irw a and

Jhadol w hich reflects need of greate r l oan rota tion in t hese bl ocks.

The cash at bank i s 28.5% of the tot al funds. It is hi ghest in Jhadol (82%) and K herwara

(45%) block and lowest in Urban (11%) and Kumbhal garh (25%) block. T his i s

indicative of t he fact that members are still not using their funds, though t here is ampl e

demand for credit. T his i ssue will be addressed through regul ar m onitoring of SHGs and

moti vating members t o fol low group values and norms. T he total cash in hand is 5.3% of

the ne t ow ned fund. It is highest i n Kum bhalgarh (19%) and Gi rwa (14.6%) and lowest i n

Urban (0.5%) and Badgaon bl ock (3.5% ).

Performance of SHGs on t he basis of main indicators The per formance of SHGs on the basis of six main i ndicators – meeti ng regular ity,

savings regul arity, attendance regularit y, pri ncipal repayment, interest repayment, and

safe port folio show s that U rban block outperforms other bl ocks in all indicators. Int erest

repayment rat e i s 96% to 100% in all bl ocks except in Jhadol and portfolio at risk is very

low in Urban block and high i n Kherwara and B adgaon block.

Audit and Profi t distribution In order to make SH G account s transparent and robust, a system of annual i nternal audit foll owed by profi t dist ribution was i ntroduced last year. For this a group of skill ed

accountants were t rained as audit ors and they conduct ed the audit o f a ll SH Gs. After the

audit in March’10, for the fir st t ime, duri ng Apr il – June’10, pro fit di stributi on was done

in all the SHG s. For this, initially, the c rit eria for pro fi t distribution w ere discussed wit h


27

the groups and they deci ded it to be based on total savings of members. The members recei ved a profit of Rs. 23, 85, 169 from the ir SH Gs.

The process o f audit and pro fi t dis tri bution has e ffectivel y contribut ed in strengt heni ng

SHGs. 152 SHG s have raised their savings, in the Urban block from Rs. 50 to Rs. 200 and in the rural from R s. 10 to Rs. 50 monthly. Very few SH Gs have a monthly saving of

Rs. 10. 114 SHGs have rai sed thei r account ant’s honorarium in this peri od, from Rs. 1 t o

Rs. 2 per m ember. In March’11, t he second audi t was init iat ed.

Linkage with financial institut ions In this period 6 SHGs got linked with external financial i nstituti ons and m obili zed

Rs. 5,54,095 of which 4 SHG s mobi lized Rs. 5,04,095 from banks under SGSY s cheme of

Government and 1 SH G mobilized Rs. 50,000 from t heir vill age fund. O ut of 5 SHG s

linked wit h bank, 3 recei ved a revolvi ng fund o f R s. 44,095 w hich is being used for

consumpti on purposes and 2 SHG s have been sanc tioned a l oan of R s. 4, 60,000 from

bank for assorted i ncome generat ion acti vities l ike goat ery, provi sion shop, irrigati on

equipments et c.

Capacit y buil ding of SHGs a. Campai gns: D uring this period 85 campaigns (one day) i n all blocks, in which 2,542

women from 179 SH Gs par tici pated. T hese campaigns mainl y focused on the con cepts of

SHGs, performance indicat ors and addressing the speci fi c problem s of the SHG s. T hes e

campaigns have proved very e ffective in improving performance of SHG s in te rms of

meeti ngs, att endance, s avings and repayment.

b. Training of accountants: At present the SHG records a re m aint ained by 144

accountants. D uring this peri od regular monthly and zona l l evel m eeti ngs were organi zed

to enhance accounting skill s of accountant s and ensure flow o f da ta from vi llage to bl ock

for maint aining MIS. D uring this peri od 10 trainings were organi zed for the accountants.

S ince last year , the audit of SHG s is being done by a group of 25 tra ined accountant s

from the comm unity. For these accountants, a re fresher t raining on w as organized in

February’11.

Capacit y buil ding of staff a. W orkshop on vision deve lopment: In order to develop the vision of t he SHG

programm e, si nce March’10 many w orkshops have been don e w ith the staff o f S eva

Mandir. In t his peri od, 2 m ore workshops were conduct ed wi th the staff in A pril and

June’10. T hese works hops were facilitat ed by a consul tant from PRADA N. On 26th

July’10, the fir st dra ft of the vision docum ent was shared wit h the executive council of

Seva Mandir. T he members o f the council appreciat ed the vis ion document and al so shared thei r suggestions, w hich have been incorpora ted in t he docum ent. T he vision

document has been fi nalized and shared with concerned sta ff i n Seva Mandi r. T he

document will be used a guideline i n developm ent of SHG programme.


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b. T raini ng on SHG concept s and faci litation ski lls: A trai ning of t he sta ff members involved in implem entati on of SHG programme was held in Septem ber’10 at K aya

trai ning centre. 34 st aff, w hich included 27 zonal staff, 7 block sta ff and 1 unit staff

parti cipated in t he training. T he training focused on imparting knowl edge on basi c SHG

concepts and facil ita tion skill s (for facili tat ion of the group meeti ngs ). T he trai ning was faci lit ated by Mr. Bijoy and Mr. Sanjay from PRADAN. V ari ous parti cipat ory met hods

like role plays, games and group discussions were used i n the training.

c. Cl uster format ion training: A tw o day training on SH G cluster formation was

organized i n Decem ber’10. T he object ive of the training w as to understand the need,

processes involved i n clust er formation and formula te act ion plan for the s ame. 31 staff

includi ng zonal st aff and SH G i ncharges participated in the training. T he trai ning was

faci lit ated by a consultant from PRADAN. T he sta ff has identi fi ed the s elected areas in

their block for formati on o f clusters and w ill initiat e the process o f it s formati on in t he

coming months.

d. SHG Program revi ew m eeti ng: A two day meeting was organized in February’11, at

Kotra block to discuss the stat us of SH Gs and explore w ays t o strengt hen the SH G's i n

the bl ock. SH G i n-charges from di fferent bl ocks and staff o f block Kot ra par tici pated i n

the m eeting. T he meeting w as facil itat ed by Mr. Bijay from PRADAN, Ms. Sw ati Patel

and Mr. Prabhula l Salvi, from Seva Mandi r. B esides, a one day meeti ng wit h staff

involved in SHG programme was done on 29th

November’ 10. T his m eeting was

faci lit ated by Mr Bijay from PRA DAN and it mainl y focused on progress in t he last si x

months based on per formance indicat ors, cluster format ion, monitori ng format,

accounting system and NRLM (Nati onal R ural Li velihoods Missi on). 6 staff members

parti cipated in this meeting.

e. C ourse in R ural Entrepreneurshi p, A dministration and Management (CR EAM): Seva

Mandir has collaborated w ith a team of consul tants for a s hor t course (6 months – 37

days) on Rural Ent repreneurship, A dmini stration and Management. It’s a curr iculum

designed and taught by indust ry pro fessional s, NGO l eaders and academi cians. It’s a par t

time MBA program designed for rural businessm en and employees of N GOs runni ng

various livelihood projects.

Before init iat ion of the course, a two day ass essment w orkshop was organi zed i n

February’11 in which 35 ent repreneurs from diffe rent enterpr ises like D aal Mill,

F isheri es, Soy processi ng, goat ery, handicraft, ornamental fi sheries, veget able culti va tion,

Dal iya maki ng etc. had parti cipated. T he purpose of this w orkshop was to screen and

select the final list of parti cipants for the course. A group of 20 entrepreneurs were

select ed for thi s course aft er sc reening al ong wi th 10 s taff o f Seva Mandir. S ince it was long course only 10 entrepreneurs agreed and decided to conti nue the course. T he first

trai ning under the course was star ted i n March’ 11, which focused on basic mathem atics

and bus iness accounti ng. T he second trai ning will be conduct ed in Apr il’ 11 and t he

course will be compl eted i n A ugust’10.


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f. Partic ipation in external meetings and trainings: During this period 5 w omen from

vill age K aya o f Gi rwa block and 2 st a ff o f Sev a Mandir – Mr Khushwant and Mr A kshay

parti cipated in a one day w orkshop organized by Dr AK Jain, ow ner of a private fi rm i n

Udaipur on “Tropi cal Aquacul ture and Farming Syst em, on 17th

August’10. T he workshop w as based on “A wareness Programm e on Ent repreneurship Devel opment i n

Ornam ental Fisher ies”. Mr K hus hwant, SH G Incharge from G irw a bl ock gave a

presenta tion on ornament al fisher ies work under taken by Seva Mandir i n thi s w orkshop.

Income Generation Initi ati ves The existi ng income generat ion acti viti es w ere cont inued duri ng this period. A one day

trai ning on flow er cult ivati on was organized on 13th May’10 in Girwa bl ock. 55 peopl e

from 4 villages - partici pated in t his t raini ng. T his t raini ng was facil itat ed by a local

resource person. 26 w om en are involved in the flower culti va tion initi ative and earn

about Rs. 2,300 per head annually through i t.

In K herwara block, one w omen from vi llage Ni chlatal ab st arted sale of milk through t he

kiosk provi ded by department of fisher ies. Tw o SHGs of vil lage Nichlatalab involved i n

F isheri es, recei ved a ki os k set for sale o f fish from the department o f Fi sheries sometim e

back t hi s year . A s t hese SHGs were not i nvol ved in fi sh cat ching for the last few mont hs

due to less wat er i n t he pond, the group decided to utilise t he kiosk for other purpose. So,

they rented it to one of the m embers of t he SHG.

a. Fisheries: In Jhadol bl ock 40 wom en m embers of 2 SHGs from Dadm iya and

Baansar iya villages are i nvolved in fisher ies work. In this per iod Seva Mandir initiat ed

construction of concre te houses for thes e 40 w omen with support of depar tment of

fi sheries . For t he construction, the departm ent sanct ioned R s. 20 lakhs – Rs. 50,000 per

benefi ciary und er their housing scheme for fishermen. W hi le w orking on t he design of

the house, it w as reali zed tha t t he money from fi sheries dep artm ent w on’t be su ffic ient to

build a proper house, t herefore Sev a Mandir decided t o contri bute an additi ona l amount

o f Rs . 4 lakhs and benefi ciari es decided to contr ibute labor and some mat erial. A n

inaugurati on ceremony was organized on 16th

February’11, in t he village t o initiat e

construction of houses. The ceremony w as attended by offi cial s o f Fi sheries Depar tment

and st aff o f S eva Mandir. T he construction is under process and w ill be completed in 6-7

months.

b. Ornamental fi sheries: In this peri od a vol unteer from N orway initi ated a st udy t o

understand t he st atus of orn am ental fisher ies to desi gn fut ure strategy for up scaling t he

acti vity. T he study will be complet ed in N ovember’ 10. In order to bett er understand t he

technica l aspect s of ornamental fisher ies m eeti ngs with 2 experts on fisheri es - Dr. Saini (F isheries dept. of M. L Sukhadia Uni versi ty) and Dr. A. K J ain (a professor t urned

entrepreneur) was done dur ing this peri od. Dr. Saini provided inputs regarding the t ypes

o f fi shes which can be bred, thei r market val ues at different phases of their age,

equipments needed, different fi sh feeds etc .


30

Tw o people from Seva Mandir vi sited the pri vate farm o f Mr . A. K Ja in, which has 70

small ponds and is equipped with m odern sci entific technology. He s uggested for t aking

up tw o/three ponds on pilot basi s and introduci ng modern technological m ethods in t hos e

ponds like construct a sm all bio fil ter and continuously monitor these two ponds. O nce these ponds deli ver good profit s i t w ill act as a big motivator for other w omen. Bio fi lter s

can then be construc ted for rem aining ponds. He also suggested for t raini ng of w omen

on diffe rent aspects of ornam ental fis heries. In t he comi ng months furt her w ork wi ll be

done on strengtheni ng ornamental fi sheries consider ing s uggestions comi ng from

diffe rent experts. 8 out of 13 wom en have b een i nvol ved in t hi s and are earni ng about

Rs. 500-Rs. 800 annually.

c. Soy processing mi cro-enterprise: T he Soy microent erpri se i s run and managed by three

trai ned yout hs from vill age Kaya. T he youths are responsibl e for procur ing the raw

mater ial, m aking t ofu and soymil k and del iveri ng it at vari ous places. On an average they

work for 20 days i n a month and are paid a dail y wage of Rs. 100 for t heir work.

In t hi s peri od a new full ti me professional was appointed to expand and s trengthen t he

micro enterprise. A vol unt eer from America India Foundat ion also j oined t he proj ect. T he

necessary equipments needed for the smooth functioni ng of the business whi ch incl udes

the Pres sing A ssembl y and Cold Storage was also purchased. T he idea o f us ing soy bi-

product t o make soy fortified biscuits was dropped as it w as found that the by product i s

rich only i n fi bre and not in protein. B esides a lot of e ffor ts were direct ed towards

market ing of soy produce as a result of which som e indivi dual s, hot els, educational

inst itut ions, hospit als etc showed immense i nt erest in the product.

For c reati ng market awareness of soy produce , the logo, punchline and att racti ve

brochure were deve loped. T he American hospi tal, Si nghania Universit y and Vi dya

Bhaw an placed t heir orders for purch ase o f T ofu. A stall was set up in the trade cum

entert ainment fa ir organi sed by R otary Club on 24th O ctober’ 11. In the event , raw tofu

and a dish made o f t ofu ‘ tof u chill y’ was demonstrated and placed for sale. Peopl e

showed imm ense interest in the product and a sal e of R s. 1,100 was achieved.

Fur thermore, a weekly kiosk was started i n Seva Mandir premises to attract people from

neighbouring residential areas and em ployees of Seva Mandi r.

In t his per iod, 1,163 litres of soy milk and 462 kg of t ofu were sol d to children att ending

educational camp at Kaya t raini ng centre, T rident hotel, American hos pital, Singhani a

university, Vi dya Bhaw an, a local vendor and Seva Mandir employees and a sal e o f Rs.

69,460 was achieved. O ut of 500 kg t ofu produced, 462 kg o f t ofu was s ol d, of the

remai ning 38 kg, 15 kg was wast ed due t o its shor t shel f li fe and the res t 23 kg was used as sampl es for potenti al clients. T he microenterpr ise has been able to manage cost of

goods /raw m ater ial from sal es however it hasn’ t been able t o meet t he operational

expenses l ike salari es, trans por t e tc. In com ing m ont hs e ffort s w ill made to increas e sal es

and si mult aneously reduce operational cost to generate ne t profit .


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d. Micro-i nsurance: During t his per iod under “Jeevan M adhur” sch eme o f LIC 30 people

got associ ated wit h the s cheme i n Urban and Kherw ara block. T ill dat e 992 people a re

insured under t his scheme through 24 agents.

Conclusion The last year wit nessed many new initiati ves, especially i n the area o f capaci ty buildi ng

o f bot h the communit y and Seva Mandir sta ff. T he SH Gs showed impres sive progress as

did t he incom e generat ion ac tivities. T he s trat egies of com ing year wi ll focus on buil di ng

upon last year’s strengths and opport uniti es.


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Ea rly Childhood Care a nd Devel opment Programme

This reporting peri od was very exciti ng in t erms of d evelopment and re finement o f a

locall y developed curricul um for chi ldren i n the age group o f 3-5 years and Sanchali kas

impl ementi ng it with much pri de. The camera monit or ing system has been proving to be

e ffective and is demonstrating potent ial of ext ension to many m ore centres. New

initiatives like immuni zati on of Balw ari chil dren and i nclusi on of double for ti fied sal t i n

the m eals served at Balwar i took shape and e ffor ts at coll aborati on wi th t he government

were responded to favourably.

Running Balwadi centers

At present there are 194 Bal wadi’s centers and t he tot al enrollment i n thes e centers was

4,386, wit h 2, 258 girls and 2, 128 boys. In t his period t he enrollment of girls at Bal wadi s

was marginally hi gher than boys. In this period, 6 B alwadi cent res were closed due to

opening o f the gov ernment Anganwadi s in 4 locat ions and due to poor per formance o f

the Sanchali kas in 2 l ocations. D emand for opening of new Balwadi centers i n another 6 locati ons w ere received and in the coming few months, t he number wi ll go back to 200.

Act iviti es withi n Balwadis

a. Cogniti ve development The children att ending the Balwadi are i n the age group o f 1-5 years and hav e di ffer ent

educational and development needs. Recognizing this need, Seva Mandir col laborat ed

with Mobile Creches, a Del hi based NG O w orking for small children, to prepare a

curri culum for chil dren in t he age group 3-5 years. T he curr iculum w as piloted i n 25

Balwadi centres. For t he process of curr iculum devel opment a series of t raini ngs were organized w ith 25 B alwadi Sanchalikas to develop, t each, exper iment and refi ne t he

curri culum. T he curr iculum will be final ized in Jul y’11.

In t his per iod possi bili ty of associ ation wit h ‘Prat ham,’ an organizati on also involved i n

earl y childhood care and devel opment w as also explored. In May’10, a t eam com prisi ng

o f four representat ives of Pratham from Delhi, Al lahabad, Pune & Mumbai vi sited Seva

Mandir Balw adi and NFE centers. In the first week of A ugust’10, t hree s ta ff members

visi ted two pre school centers run by Pratham in Jaipur. T he model was very di fferent as

the centers were run only for t wo hours wi th a focus on pre-school act ivit ies, not on other

aspects of child deve lopment. T herefore as sociation with Pratham couldn’ t be continued.

b. Nutrition and Healt h Chi ldren i n the Balwadis are given two meals a day, one hot cooked meal and one ready

to eat snack. T he ready t o eat snack forti fied wit h mi cro-nutrients was procured from an

agency b ased in Ja ipur, which was closed in 2009. W omen group mem bers of an SH G in

Demat village of K herwara have been prepari ng and supplyi ng Dal iya (broken wheat ) t o


33

all the Bal wadis for t he past 2 years i n that block. B ased on that experience, w e m otivat ed other SH G m embers of K ojaw ara vil lage t o prepare and provide a nutri tious snack to a

few centers i n their c lose vici nity. W e also placed two volunt eers t o hel p the SHG

members i dentify a locall y accept able snack. T hese food items w ere fiel d test ed on m any

paramet ers and fin al ly ladoo (a mi x of p eanuts , jaggery, sesame seeds and wheat ) w as fi na lized. At pres ent three SHG members are prepar ing and supplyi ng l adoos to 7

Balwadis in K herwara block. As of now , another volunteer is worki ng closel y with t he

SHGs to improve consist ency o f the l adoo whi le a lso w orking on the cos ting, feas ibility.

I f t his intervention succeeds it will be gradually be extended to other Bal wadis i n

Kherw ara block. Meanwhil e, the factory in Jaipur has resumed production and we plan t o

supply the forti fied nut ri-pops t o other B alw adis, whil e worki ng on enabling wom en

SHG members t o undertake producti on and suppl y of fort i fied snacks.

Even though t he effectivenes s of B alw adis on addres sing malnutrition among children

has been s om ewhat significant , yet there is a real ization that more needs t o be done. In

this regard, Seva Mandir, i n coll aborati on wi th A cti on against Hunger has decided on a

pilot an Int egrated C ommunity Based Management of acute mal nutrition (C MAM)

program for children up t o 59 mont hs old. I t w ill be impl emented init ial ly for six mont hs

in 10 villages (cover ing 3 B alwadis) of G irw a block. It will then be furt her extended to

around 30 more villages. T he programme wil l w ork in close collaboration wit h Balwadi

programm e.

Seva Mandir ’ s health programme has deci ded to conduct an action research using doubl e

fort i fi ed salt i. e. s alt fort i fi ed with Iodine and Iron, to address anemia among Balwadi

children. Pres ently the meals provided at the Balw adi are cooked usi ng iodis ed salt. For

this research, B alw adi cent res w ill be s elected randomly in tw o blocks, o f which s om e

will be i n the control group and others wi ll be in the t reatm ent group. Based on t he

outcome of t he res earch, it may be repli cated in ot her B alwadi cent ers. T he research w ill

star t i n t he mi d of May’11.

c. Immunization The external eval uation of t he B alwadi program (done in September’ 09) had highlight ed

the fact that the percentage o f completel y i mmunized chil dren i n these centers i s very low

and needs to be improved. As a follow up o f the evaluati on recom mendations, a basel ine

survey was conducted to as sess the immuni zation status of t he children attending t he

Balwadi and was found that only 19% o f the chi ldren a re ful ly im munized. Gi ven thi s

abysmal coverage o f full im munization, we dec ided that while w e will continue to trai n

and motivat e the Sanchali kas to educate the parents for immuni zati on and help t he

Sanchalika l everage immuni zation services from the government, we w ill al so st art our

own immuni zati on programme.

The responsibili ty of imm unizing the B alw adi chi ldren will be undertaken by the H ealt h

programm e o f Seva Mandir . For this the vaccines will be procured from the government.

The nurses appoi nted by Seva Mandi r wi ll visit each centre conti nuousl y for t hree


34

months to provide vaccinati on; a plan for the same h as been drawn out in consul tation with em inent Pedi atricians of Udaipur . T he presence o f nurses wi ll be monitored t hrough

cameras. T he children will be provi ded chocolat es on t he day of i mmunization, mai nly t o

divert thei r a ttention from pain.

d. Grow th Monitoring

The nut ritional status of all the chil dren attending the Bal wadi i s monitored on a si x

monthly bas is. Loca l people are trai ned to measure he ight and weight and to pl ot it

graphical ly. The Sanchali kas are t rai ned to decipher the growth cards of the children,

taking ext ra care o f severel y malnouri shed chil dren and educa ting the parents to do t he

same. During the last si x months, new grow th moni tori ng regi sters depict ing the growt h

charts and i mmuni zation schedule for each chil d w ere i ntroduced.

The growth m onitori ng of chi ldren was done in Septem ber’10.T here were som e

discrepanc ies in the data collect ed and plott ing done. So re- training of surveyors w as

done in Novem ber’10 to cor rect bot h the data and pl otting. In September’10, growt h

monit oring of 2, 602 children enrol led i n 194 B alw adis was done. As per the analysis, 322

children (12%) were found normal, 1, 539 (59%) were mal nour ished and 741 (28%) were

very m alnourished. T he s econd round o f grow th m onitori ng was done i n February’ 11, t he

data ana lysis of which has been done and t he repor t preparati on is in process.

The tota l cal orie content o f two meals provi ded in the B alw adi is approx 700 cal ories and

20 gram s o f protei n. This prescripti on follows from t he st andard desi gn o f supplementary

nutrition where 1/ 3rd of the total calori es and ½ o f the tot al prot ein requi rement o f the

child is met through t his diet. I t is expect ed that the rest w oul d be cover ed at home s ince

the chi ld is at the B alwadi for 7 hours onl y, but it is not happening. T here are g aps in

meeti ng diet ary requi rement s of children whi ch could be attr ibuted t o many factors li ke

cultural practices, food avail abili ty, feedi ng practi ces, wat er quality etc. And even w hil e

apprecia ting t he contri bution of Balw adis in im pacting malnutrition, Seva Mandi r al so

real izes that if com muniti es are using the nutr ition of Bal wadis t o substitute other

nutrition, then the Bal wadis will have a very limited im pact on children’s nutrition.

The Balw adis also face other limitations i n addressi ng mal nut rition, which include t he

onset of malnut rition amongst chil dren, even before t hey came to a Bal wadi and their

limited stay in t he Balwadi. Given this, plus many other unknown facets about nutriti on

and mal nut ri tion, Seva Mandir has decided to launch anot her sm all pilot on

understanding mal nutrition.

Capacity building of Sanchalikas

Duri ng this peri od 9 tra inings for t he San chalikas were organized, o f which 4 trai ni ngs

were held for the select ed 25 Sanchalikas involved in the pi lot on curr iculum

development and the other 5 trainings were done for the remaining Sanchalikas. T he

trai nings with 25 Sanchalikas mai nly focused on development of fir st dra ft o f t he


35

curri culum for chi ldren i n the age group 3-5 years. For developm ent of the fir st draft of the curr iculum di ffe rent act ivities requi red for overall devel opm ent of chi ldren were

discussed and conducted wit h Sanchali kas. T he Sanchalikas were asked to implem ent t he

weekl y tasks as per the cur riculum in the ir cent ers for tw o months and provide their

feedback i n the next training. In every training the cur riculum was further re fi ned based on the feedback o f Sanchali kas and Seva Mandir t eam. T he Sanchalikas also learnt t o

prepare their own teachi ng learning kit i n t hese t raini ngs.

In order to monitor, assess the impact of tra inings and provi de ons ite guidance to t he

Sanchalikas, a t eam of consult ants from Mobile C rèches and Seva Mandir staff m ade 2

visi ts to Seva Mandir B alw adis. T he visits s howed that many Sanchalikas were

organizi ng age spec i fi c activities and a few were fi ndi ng i t difficul t to manage t he

diffe rent age groups. T he team s uggested regular monitoring of these 25 B alwadi

centres. T hes e trai nings have helped Sanch alikas underst and age wise ac tivit ies for

children and rati onal e behi nd each acti vi ty. T here is a noti ceable difference in

knowledge, effi ciency and con fidence of thes e Sanchalikas as a result of these traini ngs

and that is also visi ble in the way t hey run thei r centres. Besi des, there i s a sense of

ownershi p in Sanhalikas for thi s curr iculum as they have been a par t o f the entire process

o f cur ricul um developm ent.

Another trai ning with these Sanchal ikas has been planned i n A pril’11 after w hi ch a

workshop wit h Seva Mandi r staff w ould be organized in t he month of June t o discuss and

fi na lize the cur ricul um. T he curri culum will be ready in July’11.

In addit ion t o trainings for Sanch ali kas invol ved in pilot on curricul um developm ent, 5

trai nings for the Sanchalikas from non pil ot areas were organized. 169 Sanchalikas

parti cipated in t hese trainings. T hese t raini ng were facili tated by Seva Mandir team and

some o f t he San chali kas involved in the t raini ng for curri culum development. T he

trai nings mainl y focused on age speci fic ac tivities for children, process and importance of

parents meetings, underst andi ng growth monitoring, immunization, record keepi ng et c.

Besides the tra inings, t he Sanchalikas al so par tici pated in 4 bi-mont hly (two days

resi dential ) meetings. Thes e meetings were used as a platform t o foll ow up on thi ngs

discussed in trai nings and specific problems in Balwadis.

Engaging i n d ialogue with the com muni ty on issues related to ECC D

(i) Parent’s m eeting and contribut ion Duri ng this peri od around 580 parent s meetings were organized in all the blocks. T hese

meeti ngs mai nl y focused on ag e speci fic acti viti es for chi ldren, immuni zati on, birt h regist rat ion, camera monitoring, personal hygiene , regul arit y of the chil d, B alwadi fees

etc. T he meeting enabl ed the parent s t o get acquainted wi th t he progress of thei r chi ldren,

and gave Sanchali kas and parent s an occasi on to have a dialogue. T hes e meet ings al so


36

provided pla tform to Sanchalikas receiving trai ning from Mobil e C reches t o share their new learni ngs and its impact on children.

(ii ) Parent’s contribution The parents of chi ldren a ttending Bal wadis pay a t oken fee o f R s. 100 in advance i n the beginning of t he year or a fter. T his year R s. 182, 384 (48%) has been coll ected agai nst an

expected amount of Rs. 403,200. In total fees coll ected, the fee w as w aived o ff for 400

children o f fi ve blocks, as s ome chi ldren came from poor famili es and it was also waived

o ff in those cases where there was more t han one chil d from a famil y. T he fee col lected

was deposited in the V illage Devel opment Fund (Gram Vi kas Kosh). This year the

collec tion of fee has been low er t han expect ed d espite regular i nt eraction with the parents

and the community. In t he coming mont hs speci al effor ts will be done t o moti vate parents

for timely deposition of fees . In some places w here there was a shor tfal l in the amount,

parents or the vi llage deve lopment com mittee cont ribut ed an extra amount in order to

purchase t he preferred items for children.

Mobi lizing comm unit ies to address quality issues in government Anganwadi centers

A t raini ng program for the women panchayat level associ ation leaders was organized i n

Jhadol bl ock during 15th

-16th

August’10. 80 women leaders from 8 cluste r par tici pated i n

the t raini ng program. T he purpose was to discuss the probl ems i n the impl ementa tion of

Integrated chi ld development Scheme ( ICDS) o f government. T he Child D evelopment

Project Offi cer and Supervi sor from Jhadol block w as invit ed as a R esource person.

W omen raised i ssues like poor quality of nutri tion, absent eeism of Anganwadi W orkers,

AN Ms (A uxili ary Nurse Midwives) not comi ng on MCH N (Mot her and C hild H ealt h

Nutrition ) days etc. T he O fficers shared provisi ons under the program and asked t he

women leaders to talk to t he loca l Sahakari ta Samiti for nutr iti on and did not respond on

other issues. W om en have pl anned to take up these matters with their respec tive Sarpanch

and the ward mem bers. Similar trainings wi ll be conducted in the ot her bl ocks.

Li nki ng with Ex ternal A gencies

Seva Mandir impl emented a project ‘Ensuri ng Ear ly C hildhood C are t hrough

Convergence wit h the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Schem e

(MGNREGS) in 20 B alw adi centres of Udai pur and Raj samand dis tri ct, from Oct ober

2009 t o D ecember 2010, w ith support of Unit ed Nati ons Developm ent Programm e

(UN DP). Under t his projec t childcare faci lit y w as provided to m ot hers w orking on

MGNREGA sit es. T his innovative model has been w ell apprec iated and it may be

repli cated by government in other places.

Encouraged by the response o f the governm ent, Seva Mandir decided to visi t B horukha

Charitable Trust, in R ajgarh block of C huru district i n Raj asthan. This NGO has been

impl ementi ng ICDS program in tw o blocks of the dist rict for the past 18 years. T he

purpose o f t he visit w as t o l earn about t he positi ves and chall enges in runni ng


37

Anganwadi s i n coll aborati on with Minist ry of W omen & C hild Devel opment. A t eam of 3 st aff members vi sited the organizations fiel d area on t he 4

th and 5

th of A ugust. The team

was abl e to visit a few centers and interacted wi th AWWs, ASH A, H elper, CDPO,

Supervisor appointed by the T rust and other offi cial s. Following t his, the Chief Ex ecuti ve

o f Seva Mandir met t he Di strict C ollector and shared Bhorukha model wi th him and showed willingness to adopt Anganw adi cent ers. T he coll ected agreed and assured Seva

Mandir for this collabora tion. Seva Mandir later s ent l ette r t o the col lect or and has been

continuoued foll ow ing up with t he distri ct collec tor.

Seva Mandir part icipat ed in a “D evelopment D ialogue” organized by the Chief Minist er

o f R ajasthan wit h represent ati ves of ci vil society on 24th

Feb, 2011. In this meet ing

Seva Mandir presented and shared i ts B alw adi m odel and expressed possibl e areas o f

collaboration with t he government. The G overnment represent atives appreciat ed the

programm e and asked Seva Mandir to submi t a concept note on t he B alw adi

programm e. T he concept not e was then sent to C hief Mini ster o f Rajasthan, Minister o f

Rural developm ent and Panchayati Raj Ass oc iati on, Principal Secreta ry of W omen and

Chi ld Development Programme and Mini ster of Wom en and Child Developm ent

Programme and T ourism. W e hope that t his will give us t he required openi ng for

furt her col laboration with the government.

Seva Mandir car ried out a research on government ’s e ffort s at improving maternal healt h

and regulari ty o f A nganw adi centers to continue the practice o f engaging with t he

Government and underst anding i ts w orking. For thi s in January’09, Seva Mandir at t he

dist rict level, in agreement with t he C ollec tor & D eputy Direc tor, IC DS (Integrated Chil d

Devel opm ent Scheme) Udai pur, under took monitori ng of the regul arit y o f the

Anganwadi W orkers (AWW s), and the quality of servi ces provided a t 20 Anganwadi

Centers (AW Cs) (t reatment centers) and 17 compar ison Anganwadi cent ers of 14

panchayats i n Jhadol bl ock. T his research agreem ent was for two years and it ended in

April’11.

The m onitoring mechani sm included cameras with date and time stam ps to check t he

regular ity of MCH N days and A nganw ari centers and random checks to m oni tor t he

qualit y of services. Random checks were conduct ed by trained monit ors from t he

communities. Every month, the monit ors conduct ed 4 random checks for each

Anganwadi C enter and two MCH N Days of each ANM. T he regul arit y of monitors was

ensured t hrough date and time stamped phot ographs of the monitors taken at the random

visi t sites. T he ana lysis for the period O ct –March’11 i s in process. Anganw adi w orker’ s

full day pres ence at the center was for 25. 7% o f total working days, hal f day presen ce

was for 13.9% of t otal worki ng days and absence for 43. 5% of tot al working days.

FORCES R ajasthan


38

FORCES (Forum for C rèche and C hildcare Servi ces) i s an advo cacy net work w hich i s commi tted to the survival, prot ecti on and holistic devel opment of the young chil d and

Seva Mandir is the Co- C onvener for Rajast han State.

Seva Mandir parti cipat ed in the Poli cy Committee Meeting (PCM) organized by CWD S (Cent re for W om en Development and Studies), the Nat ional Secretar iat, i n the month of

April’10. T he network complet ed 20 years and t hus had organized celebrations on t he

20th

and 21st A pril’ 10 organized at Delhi.

Fur thermore, Seva Mandir conduct ed a tw o day par tners meet a t Jai pur on t he 14th

and

15th

May’10. A total of 22 partners attended the meet that focused on a) shari ng wit h

partners the interventions t aken up at the nat ional and stat e level, b) and to prepare t he

acti on plan for the com ing tw o years. T he action plan t hat was arrived at mainly inc luded

conducting in - depth studies on IC DS, provision of chi ld care services at Mahatm a

Gandhi N ati ona l empl oyment R ural Guarant ee Act work s ites, declining sex ration i n

some di stricts of the state and i mplementati on of the Chil d Policy o f Rajasthan. Bas ed on

the st udies advocacy campai gns at di ffe rent l evels w ere also proposed. T his ac tion pl an

was forw arded t o the Nat ional Secreta riat for approval.

Addit ionall y, FORC ES N ati onal Secret aria t organized a ser ies o f consulta tions w it h it s

partners to prepare operational plan for the peri od 2011–2015. As a part of this process,

two regional consult ations and one n ati ona l level consul tat ion was organized. Seva

Mandir part icipat ed i n nor thern region consultation held at Lucknow from 15-16

November’11. In the regi onal consult ati ons the key is sue identifi ed for advo cacy w as

Early C hildhood C are and Devel opm ent as a ri ght (ECCD ) i.e. rights of children in t he

age group 0-6 years. Sub t hemes i ncluded chil d care and protec tion, day care services ,

health, maternity entitlement and preschool education.

The Nat ional level consultation was held i n D elhi on 15th

-17th

February’11 to discuss and

compil e shari ng of regional level consultations. In t his cons ultation, a st rategy paper on

rights of the young chi ldren and women was presented by Mina Sw ami nathan and panel

and group di scussions were done on the pr ioritized issues. At the end o f this consulta tion,

broad contours - m ajor i ssues, key resul ts, strategy and ac tivities and roles o f di fferent

stakeholders, for the operat ional plan o f FO RC ES for next 3 years (2011-15) were

decided. It w as decided i n this National consul tat ion that a fi nal discus sion with t he

members incl uding steer ing comm itt ee mem bers will be held i n Delhi on 14th & 15

th

April’11. T his Consultati on will be he ld t o finalize the FORCES Action Pl an for 2011-15

and to develop a framework in this context.

The National A dvisory Council (N AC) has also planned a one day cons ul tation on 11th

April’11 in N ew Del hi. T he purpose of t hi s meet is to i nvite suggesti ons in im proving t he

worki ng of ICD S. Ms Mirai Chatt erjee, a member o f NA C has asked FO RC ES members

to be involved in this process and give concrete r ecommendati ons in this area . Seva

Mandir has been asked to represent FORC ES in this meeting.


39

Moni toring

Monitor ing of the B alwadi is done on a regular bas is by the Village D evelopment

Commit tee (GVC), the zonal w orkers, program st aff at t he block and the unit l evel. For this, observati on formats have been deve loped. T he progress of t he centres i s dis cussed i n

the village meetings, zonal, block and unit leve l meetings held every m ont h and in t he bi-

monthly m eeti ngs of the Sanchali kas held at t he block level. T he GVCs are mostl y

involved i n resolving confli cts relat ed to funct ioning o f Balwadi and i n cert ain cases t ake

support of t he zonal and block level st aff.

(i) Balw adi observation format Duri ng discussion in the st aff meet ings, it was realised t hat t he observation format used

for monitor ing of Balwadi by t he GVC and the sta ff is t he sam e and l ot o f rep eti tive and

unnecessary i nformat ion is being collected. Keepi ng i n view t he diffe rent rol es and

responsibi lities of the Gram Vi kas C ommi tt ee and that of the st a ff at di fferent levels, new

monit oring format s were devel oped in t his period. T he new form ats are much simpl er t o

fi ll in and therefore i t is expected t hat they wil l be able to fetch the requi red informati on.

(ii ) Camera Monitoring Seva Mandi r introduced cameras t o ens ure presence o f Sanch alikas in the Balwadi

centers, based on its success ful experience o f usi ng cameras t o link emol uments t o

teachers' presence in its rural schools.

The camera m oni tori ng system in B alwadis w as started on pil ot basi s from Apri l’10.

Initially the Sanchal ikas were not com fort able in use of cameras, t herefore they were

given more time and thus t he camera l inked payment s actual ly start ed from

November’10. Seva Mandi r used digit al cameras for monitor ing of S iksha K endra (Non

Formal Education centers) ear lier. It was decided t o us e this tool in monitori ng of 25

select ed Balwadi, on a pil ot basi s, and based on i ts effec t, gradually expand it to all t he centers. In these 25 centres, the Sanchali kas t ake pict ures of chil dren thrice a day w ith a

time gap of 2 hours between the first and the second phot ograph and a time gap of 4

hours betw een t he second and the t hird phot ograph. O n the basis of t hese pic tures she i s

paid her monthl y honorari um. T he Sanchalika has to run the B alw adi for a mini mum of

22 days, t he base paym ent for w hi ch is Rs.2000 and an i ncentive i s given i f the cent re

functi ons for more than the designated 22 days . A valid working day is one where the

Sanchalika w orks for a t least 6 hours in a day, and the num ber of children are 10 in t he

fi rst phot ograph, 15 in the second and t he thi rd photograph. In the coming mont hs more

e fforts will be made to reduce t he apprehensions/inhibitions of the Sanchalikas wit h

regards to camera operati ons and monitoring gui de lines.

In March’11, the camera monit or ing sys tem was extended to 28 m ore centers in Badgaon

block, the pl an i s t o gradual ly ext end thi s t o all t he cent ers.


40

(iii)External Monit oring Visit Duri ng 4

th-8

th October’10, two representatives from Copal Part ners and N ational

Foundat ion of India (N FI) visi ted Seva Mandir. T hey visited tw o Balwadi centers i n

Kherw ara and Jhadol block and held m eetings with vil lage group, Balwadi Sanchalikas

and sta ff. O n the last day o f t he visit, a debr ie fi ng meeti ng w as conducted w ith t he program staff, in which they shared t heir observati ons and concerns.

Subsequent to thi s visit, Mr Rishi K hosla and Ms Milan K hosla from A nanda T rust

visi ted Seva Mandir on 23rd

and 25th

Oct ober’10. On 23rd

Oct ober, t hey visi ted three

Balwadi centers ,Anicut, an im munization cam p and attended a vil lage meeti ng in Kotra

block. On the 25th October’10, they vi sit ed a Balwadi of B adgaon block.

Del iverables/ R esults

(i) Enrolment of children from Balwadi int o schools and Shiksha K endras (Jul y’10) In order t o ensure that children o f age 5 y ears and abov e have access to educat ion, every

year i n the m onth o f June a school enrolment drive is organi zed in almost all Balwadi

centers. T his year i n July 10, 951 chil dren w ere enrol led i n schools, of which 413 girl s

and 363 boys w ere enrolled in formal schools, 93 girls and 82 boys w ere enrolled in t he

Shi ksha Kendra (Non Formal Educa tion centres run by Seva Mandir ). Last year 784

children were enrolled i n schools of w hich 377 gi rls and 335 boys j oined formal school,

22 gir ls and 50 boys joined Siksha K endra.

(ii ) St udy on perform ance and ret ention of chil dren from B alw adis enrolled in schools It has been observed that children going to school from B alw adi per form bet ter than t hos e

who have not been t o the Balwadi. Seva Mandi r has anecdotal evidence to support these

observati ons. In order to get the required evi dence, in October’10, a st udy to ass ess t he

per formance and retent ion o f post-Bal wadi children and make comparisons wi th chi ldren,

who did not attend a Balw adi w as done by a volunteer Li sa Steci uk. T he study al so

assessed whether there are any di fferen ces betw een g enders in both retenti on rates and

per formance and looked at four main indi cators of per formance; hygiene, discipline,

con fidence and school studies. For this interview s were done wit h the teachers and

parents of Bal wadi children as wel l as non B alw adi children.

The study reveal s that the overa ll impact of t he Balw adi on children’ s performance i s

broadly positi ve, particularl y in the areas of confid ence, creat ivity, s ociali zati on skills and

hygiene. H owever i n the areas of retent ion, t he impact of t he B alw adi is much les s

positi ve and w hether or not t he Balwadi has an i mpact on retention ra tes is diffi cult t o

quantify. T he data suggest s that attending a Bal wadi m akes no di ffe rence t o t he

likelihood of children dropping out o f school early. Inst ead there are ot her si gni ficant fact ors that influence children’ s retenti on. T hese are most significant ly, the chil d

fam ilies’ economi c sit uation, the qualit y of t he school in their area and t he att itude of

their famil y and l ocal communit y tow ards education.


41

(iii) Study on “Impact of rural day care centres on mothers and elder siblings” This st udy was conducted by Ms Rachel A cheson from Switzer land. The study explored

three facets - direct impact on the w ell being of the chil dren’s care takers, usually t he

mothers and older si blings, materi al impact of Balw adi on mothers and more broadl y on

the households of the chi ldren attendi ng the Balwadi on a regul ar basis and parti cipati on o f m others within the communit y.

The study concl uded that im pact of Bal wadi on mot hers is positi ve- t hey feel less st ress,

less tired, find i t eas ier do their work, and are earni ng more income through labour and

saving t hrough meal s. It a lso shows that there has been a grea t im pact on elder s ibli ngs

special ly gi rls; t here is more awarenes s about their educat ion.

Chall enges

Even after much investment, the surveyors i nvolved in growth monitoring are still not

able to do it accurately. D eli berati ons for bett er soluti on will be t aken up at t he

organisation l evel and advi ce o f exp erts will also be sought for that . It w as t hought that

the pilot on developing and im plement ing cur ricul um will be ext ended further to another

25-50 centres but for now it seems diffi cult as t here are constrai nt s of human power,

money and tim e. Secondl y, t he pres ent 25 Sanchalikas will need more input s, support and

guidance. Despite regular i nteraction wit h parent s and GVC mem bers, the fee col lecti on

in this period has been very l ow. There is st ill a need for i ntensive effort s towards

moti vating parents and GVC m embers. T here has been regul ar enrol ment of chi ldren i n

school from Bal wadi. H owever the retent ion of chi ldren o f B alwadi enrolled i n schools i s

an i ssue that needs to be fur ther looked into. I t is chal lenging for a Sanch alika to m anage

age wi se acti vities for children as wel l as other w ork li ke cooki ng, cl eaning utensils,

getting water etc. demand for a help is surfacing and opt ions t o address this will have t o

be explored in near future .

Urban Day Care Cen ters

At present 4 day care centers are running i n four urban slums. A tot al of 186 chi ldren (77

boys and 109 girls ) i n the age group o f 0 to 5 years are enrolled in t hese day care centers,

benefi ting 159 w orking mot hers (domesti c help and labor).T he total expected fee from

these cent ers for the year w as Rs. 13,440 of whi ch R s. 8, 620 (64% ) was received.

Regular m ont hly meeti ngs of the parents were held at all these centers.

Conclusion

T aki ng int o account the learning of the Balw adi program, especi ally that of the past tw o

years, st rategi es for t he forthcomi ng three years (2012-2015) wil l be formulated.


42

Intensi ve efforts will be made t o advocate wit h the government for adopti ng/supporti ng Seva Mandir’ s model of full day B alwadis. Similarl y, a three year state operati onal pl an

for FORCES Raj asthan w ill be prepared. T he ongoing curriculum development and

camera monit oring s ystem will be strengthened. Immunization of Balw adi children and

introduction of Double For tified Salt in t he supplem entary nut rition will be i niti ated i n collaboration wi th t he Health Program of Seva Mandir.


43

Education Program

The educat ion program of Seva Mandir works to ensure educat ion for out -o f-school

children and to empower communities to collaborate e ffect ively w ith the governm ent t o

ensure qual ity educa tion t o thei r children. Seva Mandir has t he followi ng object ives i n

the dom ain of educat ion:

• To ens ure access to qualit y educati on for rural and tribal chil dren i n the age group o f

6 to 14

• To i ncrease com munity demand for qualit y education and deepen understanding of

the need thereof

• To empower youth with agency and confidence to be community l eaders.

Seva Mandir works in areas w here chil dren face hurdl es in accessing qual ity education.

These areas are tribal and t he conditi on of schooling i s often one o f severe neglect wit h

high rates o f t eacher abs enteeism, poor pedagogi cal methods, i nadequate learni ng

mater ial s and infrast ructure , and above all, an apathetic atmosphere. In the vi llages, t he

economic sit uation, incl uding t he supply and demand inadequacies, reduce the likel ihood

o f a chil d going t o or staying in school. In many places, there is also a high i ncidence of

children migrating either da ily or seasonally for w ork. H ence providing a meaningful education in this context is import ant not only for the intri nsic va lue, but also because

attendance in school can oft en prevent the child from mi grati ng at such an earl y age.

Shiksha Kendras

Seva Mandi r helps village communities run Shiksha K endras (SKs) or communit y

schools, to ensure quality educat ion t o out of school children of t ribal and marginali zed

communities. T he SKs are often single i nstruct or school s offering educa tion up t o clas s

3rd. All i nstruct ors (call ed Anudeshak) a re loca l, none o f them have had any prior formal

trai ning i n teaching children and the average educa tion of a teacher is ti ll class 8th.

The total number o f SK’s current ly functioning for current fi nancial year are 188 w ith an

enrolment of 5,694 students out of whi ch, m ore t han 42% are gi rls. D uring t his reporting

period, 7 cent ers were closed and 3 new centers opened. T he school s t hat were shut dow n

during t he las t si x months report various reasons such as t he irregularity o f the teacher ,

very low enroll ment o f children, in some cases due to children graduating to hi gher classes Government Schools. In the last evaluat ions, 3,466 children appeared for the

evaluati ons.

In order to prepare chi ldren for school, Seva Mandir educates children up to class 3 and

ensures t heir enrollment in governm ent schools wit h the i nt ention of pursuing hi gher

education and retenti on. While educati ng up to cl ass 3, Seva Mandir t akes t he


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oppor tunit y to motivate children to underst and the value and import ance o f cont inued schooling. This year a total of 1,132 i. e. 19% chi ldren w ere enrol led in G overnment

schools compared to 14% children from l ast year.

From the financi al year 2010-11, with consent from parents the fee amount has been rais ed from R s.60 to R s.100. Am ount coll ected last year was Rs. 2,73,105 i.e. 76% o f the

expected amount, thi s year, and the fee per chil d was raised t o R s. 100 from R s. 60 of las t

year. T hi s am ount was mai nly used for purch asing uniforms for children. In some cases

the fee is w aived for the chil dren who came from vul nerable and low economi c

backgrounds. T hi s w aiver is done on the discretion of the vi llage development

commi ttee .

Parent-T eacher meeti ngs were organized i n all SKs once every t wo months. A lot of

issues w ere dis cussed and resolved through such forums. Topics di scussed incl uded

Shiksha Shul k, enroll ment and at tendance of chi ldren, hygiene, teaching pat tern,

importance o f educati on, parent’ s role, etc. C elebrating festival s and occasions li ke

‘Pravesh Utsav’ (celebrating enroll ment) improves int eract ion am ong st udents and

provides opportunities for s how casing t alent. In the month of December 2010 a one-day

Chi ld Festival was organized in t he U mariya vil lage o f Jhadol Bl ock, w hich host ed more

than 500 chi ldren and 200 villagers. Chil dren from 16 SK s, 4 Y outh R esource C enters

(YRC) and Umar iya G overnment school participat ed in various acti vities.

Capacity Building of Anudeshaks

Capaci ty bui lding of t he teachers has been a crit ical area o f engagement for Seva Mandi r

as i t improves t he e fficacy o f education and also serves as a tool of moti vation for the

teachers. Instructor meetings, certi fi cation courses and instructor tra inings are some of

the i ntervent ions of Seva Mandir in t his a rea. Instructor meeti ngs brought out t he issues

faced by them and soluti ons w ere i dentified through peer group shari ng and dis cussions.

In t he third and four th quart er o f the year 2010-2011, 227 inst ructors were enrol led for

the C erti fi cation C ourse. I t has been o ffe red t o teach ers of SKs si nce 2003. T he SK

Cer tificat ion C ourse is bei ng conducted in collaborat ion w it h Vidya B hawan1. T he cours e

also aimed to set up a mechanism that enables a cont inuous dia logue and interac tion wit h

the instructors on academi c issues, i n a manner t hat the i nstructors found interesting,

challengi ng, and m eaningful for their own l earning. In t he year 2010-2011, a one-w eek

resi dential annual i nstruct or training was held in the mont h o f March. T he mai n

objecti ves of the t raini ng w ere buil ding capacit y of the instructors by strengt hening

conceptual understandi ng in language and mathemat ics and shari ng and di ssemination of

the context ual know ledge through var ious m ethods in the class. For the preparation of

trai ning, a training of trainers (T OT ) was conducted for four days from the 15th

to 18th

February. D uring t he T OT , discussions w ere he ld for t he sel ection of t opics and content.

Resource persons from V idya B hawan also provided guidance.

1 Vidya Bhawa n is a consor tium of educational institu tions with special expertise in elementary education.


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Ensuring Teachers’ Presence

The average payment o f i nstructors from Apri l 2010 – March, 2011 was Rs. 2,084

(indicating t hat on an average, t he SKs w ere open for 22.4 days per mont h). The dat a indicat es t hat the absenteeism of instruc tors has gone down and currently stands at 14%.

W e are positi ve that through this intervention wil l m otivat e the instructors to keep their

SKs open longer and will ultim ately benefi t t he chil dren.

Residential Learning C amps

The goa l of the Resident ial Learning School is to enable out of the children to read and

write i ndependent ly and w ith com prehension. The target popul ati on of the program is

out-of-school children aged 6 t o 14 years (i.e. child laborers, children who have dropped

out o f school, children who have never been in school). Other at ri sk chil dren incl ude

children who are enrolled i n school but have poor learning l evels, t hose chil dren w ho do

not at tend school regular ly and t hose who do not have access to any ki nd o f educat ion

faci lit y (either from the government or Seva Mandir).

Seva Mandir organizes three residenti al s chool s/ camps i n a financial year. In the y ear

2010-2011, the fir st 55-day resi dential school was organized i n May-June’ 10, second i n

November-January’11 and third in J anuary-March’ 11. In the third camp 201 children

(115 gir ls & 86 boys) 21 vill ages part icipated in this school from all t he five blocks of

Seva Mandir work area .

Chi ldren a ttendi ng the camp were between the ages o f 6 and 14 y ears, from these 114 had

never been to s chool , 71 had dropped out o f school and 11 were school going. T he primary reas ons for dropping out of school w ere physica l abuse by the t eacher and poor

qualit y o f edu cation. Many children were a lso unable to attend school, as t hey needed to

work to support their famili es.

This financial year 366 children were common in all t hree camps (172 girl s and 194

boys) w hich i s 87% of las t year’ s 429 unique children (153 girls and 276 boys). O ut of

these 377 chil dren, 196 att ended only 1 camp, 151 attended 2 camps and 30 attended all 3

camps held i n the year. T his da ta show s an increas e in girl partici pa tion and a decrease in

unique chil dren. T his decrease suggest s an i ncrease i n comm on children which fal ls i n

line with t he obj ectives of the camps t o ret ain children throughout the three camps.

In many cases, parents send their chi ldren w ho are already enrolled i n G overnment

schools t o these cam ps because despi te attending government school, the children are

unable t o read and w rit e. Given that the camp’s basic objective i s t o cate r t o out of school

children, it is o ften very di fficult to balance these two aspirat ions. Engagi ng with older

children (betw een 12-14 years ol d) with sm aller children during the classes can be a

challenge at tim es. It is due to t he fac t that the elder children’s needs and att ention span


46

varies than that of children below 12 years. O ne w ay o f mitigating t he challenge has been to form separat e learning groups.

Asses sments

At the st art of each the camp, an informal ass essment was carried out, t hrough

interacti ons wit h the children and small group discussi ons, to t est t heir reading and

writing skill s. T he informat ion gathered from this informal assessment was used t o

divide the cl asses according t o thei r l earning abi lity, with each class having

approximat ely 10 – 12 children per teacher. T he as sessment s hel p in assesi ng the learning

levels of chi ldren. T he children are graded in t hree learning level s viz - level C are

beginners, level B are in the middl e of thei r lea rning or semi literate and level A is t he

top l evel w hich indicat es the chi ld’s ability to be able to read and write indpendent ly wit h

comprehensi on.

At the end o f the fir st mont h a mi d-term eval uation w as conducted. S ince t his w as t he

fi rst major test teachers were av ail able t o help the chil dren and cl ear up any doubt s by

explaini ng or reading the quest ions. A ft er the mi d-term asses sment t he papers were

checked and the results shared i n a feedback and review meeti ng. On the basi s of t he

results, which indi cated an overal l improvement, the chi ldren were regrouped as p er thei r

learni ng level. At the end of the camp t he children were tested for the final tim e.

The results w ere encouraging. T here w ere 79 children in level C at the start of first camp.

By t he end of t he third camp this figure dropped t o 7. O n the contrary there were 17

children in l evel A at the time of fi rst camp and by the time the t hird camp ended 88

children had reached to level A.

Along w it h classroom st udies, fo cus w as als o given to the holi sti c development of t he

children. T here were dail y sessions for indoor and outdoor gam es as wel l as competiti ons

amongst the chi ldren and cultural events like fi lm screenings and puppet shows, whi ch

the chil dren really enjoyed. T here w ere als o a var iety of arts and crafts l ike fi nger

painti ng and drawi ng. Discussi ons wi th t he children on the im portance of education,

cleanl iness; chil d labor and other impor tant issues rela ting to the needs of local children

were also held.

Health

Due t o the extreme heat o f Indian summ ers, as wel l as t his year ’s unseasonably hot

weat her some children suffered from fev ers, boils, dehydration and vomiting. I t was

therefore necessary to arrange for regular doctors check ups, as well as hos pital appointment s w hen neces sary. In order to keep the children heal thy and avoid

malnut rition regul ar Soy Mi lk & tofu (soya paneer) dr inks w ere given t o the children.

Although the children were initially hes itant about the taste, they enjoyed t he drink a lot

more when new flavors were added. T he chil dren w ere also gi ven lots o f fresh fruits and


47

vegetables , oral dehydration s alts and dr inks t o keep them cool and hydrated and on Sundays a speci al meal w as served that was both healthy as w ell as a special treat. B y

the end of the cam p there w as a noticeable i mprovement i n the healt h of the children.

Teachers

Anudeshaks ( teachers) are the backbone of t he camp. After a r igorous sel ecti on process,

20 teachers (13 mal e & 7 female) from the areas surroundi ng Udaipur were se lected. T he

select ed teachers were then gi ven three days of t raining, facilitated by Seva Mandi r st a ff,

before they st arted their classes. T he focus of t he orient ati on was on teachi ng techni ques

and tool s, designing learni ng ai ds, and on how to take care of and list en to the children.

Bi -weekl y teacher meetings were conducted in order t o provide ongoi ng support for the

teachers so that their problems as wel l as those faced by the children could be addressed.

Seva Mandir st aff visit ed the school, observed the classroom and spent ti me with t he

children in order to understand the areas in whi ch t he teachers needed he lp.

Preventing Migration of Children through S cholarship Programme

Tw o main interventions are being carr ied out by Seva Mandir in t his respect. One is

seasonal resident ial learning camps, which have a potenti al t o target chil dren who are

migrating, prepare them for r egul ar school and also s uffi c iently motivate the children and

their parent s i n sendi ng the child to a regul ar school.

The s econd intervention was an acti on research that w as tri ed out with support from

Monsoon Acces sorize T rust. In thi s research, there were three mai n components. A t t he

fi rst l evel, the am ount equival ent t o what a child earned w hen migra ting w as given as scholars hi p to the child, on the condition that the child attended school regul arly, whi ch

meant that he did not m igrat e. A n annual scholarship of Rs. 2500 was awarded t o all

children in the exper iment villages studying i n class 3 t o class 8. T he scholarship based

on att endance was given t o those children who had at least 70% attendance. T he second

level of the incent ive w as gi ven to the village committees, if most of their children went

to school regularly. T he thi rd aw ard w as given to school s w hich displayed i mprovement

in t he ir per formance in t erms of students l earning l evels, teachers’ a ttendance, teachi ng

learni ng met hods, etc.

The results of the experi ment were very encouraging, more t han 95% school goi ng children in the village qualified for t he scholarship. Many chil dren w ho had dropped out

or w ere i rregular or had migra ted ear lier, rejoined s chool and attended i t regul arly. T he

only probl em w as of targeting since i dentifying exact ly w hich chil dren w ill m igrat e was

difficult , all children were given schol arships. T hi s leads to increased costs and may

therefore b e uns us tainable in t he long run. B ut t he experi ment di d clear ly establi sh that

taking care o f the econom ic anxi ety had a clear impact i n enabli ng fam ilies to decide t o

continue the child’s schooli ng.


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Current Interventions

The main buil di ng point s from the t wo interventions are as follow s;

• U sing l earning camps t o ensure bas ic learning abilities to chi ldren out o f school due t o economic reasons and linking t hem w ith regular schools (government or

N on Governm ent).

• U sing scholarship to ensure retenti on i n s chools (and thereby not goi ng for

mi grat ion) of those chil dren who have joined regul ar schools aft er passi ng out

from camps.

In t hi s project, we w ill be able t o target the vul nerable children in a bet ter way as the

children who attend the learning cam p are select ed only i f they are out o f school due to

economic and social constraint s. We hold t hree l earning camps i n a year, the first one i n

May – June, s econd in Nov – D ec and the final in Feb- March. Each child is encouraged

to undergo all three camps, as it has been exper ienced t hat such exposure time is required

for children to be abl e to l earn t o read, wr ite and do mat hematics. Seva Mandi r’ s fie ld

workers and the vill age development committee try t o identi fy the m ost vulnerabl e

children like t he ones w ho have migrat ed in the past, are orphans or having singl e parents, or who are from very m arginal ized fami lies etc.

Progress so Far

In t he finan cial year 2009 – 2010 three Seasonal Resi dential Learni ng School s w ere he ld

which were att ended by 602 (211 girls & 391 boys) children. Out of these a tot al of 142

children (50 girl s and 92 boys) from 20 villages from all the fi ve blocks were sel ected for

the Scholarship Programme. E fforts were made to enroll these children in schools in Jul y

– August 2010. In some cases we faced di f fi culty as children were over age or did not

have prior formal educat ion. O ut of 142 children eligible for scholarship, 111 children got enrolled in the di ffe rent government schools/ NFEs.

Most of the chi ldren were enroll ed in 20 Primary schools and 7 upper prim ary school s. 31

children are stil l out of school and some of them migrated t o Gujarat for work. Seva

Mandir tri ed hard to bri ng them back t o school but it w as not possi bl e. One of t he major

challenges faced was enroll ing older girls in school. In B adgaon block, a 13 year old girl

was insult ed by the school teacher, and became so de-m otivated that she stopped comi ng

to school. For such children Seva Mandi r i s trying to accom modate t hem i n its rural

schools.

Moni toring Mechanis ms

It has been decided to m onitor /track a chil d’s attendance i n school thr ice each m ont h

(excludi ng the months w hen there are vacati ons or exams). A ten person t eam cons isting

o f sta ff mem bers from the education programme have been assi gned to 3 -4 villages


49

each, w here they conduct random checks. T hey also w ork with children (li ke doi ng acti viti es with them), parent s (encouraging them to send their chil d to s chool regul arly,

work with the school), w ith Villagers ( to get adequate teachers in the school or make the

teachers regul ar).

Urja Gh ar (Youth Resou rce Centers - YRCs)

It is impor tant that India’s youth are well i nform ed and equipped to cr iticall y analyze and

identi fy is sues and challenges i n t heir lives. T he YRCs work with t he obj ective of

equipping rural yout h wi th knowledge, capacity and skills which can help them face t he

challenges of the s oc iety wi thin vill age and outside.

In May 2010, 12 boys and gi rls c reated a savings group. The YRC also conduct ed a

workshop on pa inting. T he subj ects of t he painti ngs were ‘ fearl ess l earning i n schools’

and addres sed corporal punishment and violence against chil dren i n schools. Also, seven

15 year ol d girls were enroll ed in school for t he fi rst ti me t his year, 40 boys and 40 gi rl s

were trained i n regard to health and 28 s tudents signed up for a t raining on T V and stereo

tape repairing due in May 2011.

The livelihood bureau (a separate organizati on) organized a one m onth cooking t raini ng

in t he Badgoan YRCs. A tot al of 5 youth parti cipated and 3 are now w orking i n hotel s

with wages of at leas t Rs.3,500 per month. T hese blocks w ere acti ve with regular

acti viti es which i nvol ve working on education, gender and heal th, governance and

informati on disseminat ion. YRC volunteers encourage the yout h who had dropped out o f

school to start thei r educati on again, by enrolling eit her in s chool s or i n the N ational

Open School Program. T his year more than 40 youth w ere re-enrolled i n the school.

Som e o f the other activities’ carried out i n the YRC’s are sel f r eflect ion exercises, movi e

apprecia tion s essions, w here movies relat ing t o t he vari ous social issues and the problem s

o f t he village and youth a re w atched and then discussed by the youth.

The YRCs arranged cel ebrati ons on some key “Days”, li ke “W orld N o T obacco Day” ,

“Teachers’ D ay”, “World A IDs Day” and “Republi c Day”. In the 16th

N ati onal Yout h

Festival held in Udai pur, yout h from all over the w orld attended t he celebration a long

with 4 yout h and 2 volunteers from Kotra. In order t o give the at tendees a glimpse of the

culture of Kot ra t he 4 youth present ed a play.

Workshops and Trainings

In K herwara t rainings occurred for m any YR C youth: 17 st udents st udied comput er, 6

studied elect ric motor bindi ng, 12 studied house w iri ng, 10 studied to be a hot el w ait er, 1

studied solar l ighti ng, 13 studied NREG A Mate, 29 studi ed sewi ng, 80 studi ed T ara

Akshar (only for girls) and 1 st udied t o be an office assist ant.


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In Jhadol many YRC youth att ended t raini ng on NR EGA and then went to their respect ive villages to i nform their vil lages about NR EGA and the peopl es’ r ights under

the act. Also, in March 2010, along wit h the help of Vidhya Bhawan Pol ytechnic College,

the YRC i n Jhadol conducted a sew ing t raining for 30 girls. Y outh vol unteers and 3 yout h

from Chit rakut nagar Y RC par tic ipated in a film m aking and phot ography t raini ng organized by Shi kshantar. A design works hop on work on textiles and wood was

organized at YRC V arvaliya by four design st udent s from Belgium. T he classes were

attended by about 30-35 children and youth regularly.

A renewed effor t i s bei ng made to reach out to youth from the vi llages and hamlets whi ch

are far from t he YRCs and to the youth w ho are not going t o schools. T he YRC’s al so

creat e an opport uni ty for t he youth to inte ract wit h the youth of other vill ages and ci ties

both t hrough visits t o other YRC’s and t hrough works hops and trainings held out side of

the YRC and bl ock level s. Duri ng the last 6 months tw o such w orkshops took place. 2

youth from Madr i YRC attended a 2 day workshop on Learn W ithout Fear organized by

Plan i nternational.

YR C Evaluati ons

From this year onw ards a syst em for evaluat ion of per formance of the Y RC is bei ng

impl emented. T hese eval ua tions will be done on the quar terl y basis. Parameters for the

evaluati on are – att endance o f yout h volunteers, number of field vi sit s, their reasons and

impacts, number of act ivities conduct ed and its impact, number of youth groups formed,

number of meetings conduct ed and thei r impact, number of youth comi ng to YRC (boys

and girl s), and number of yout h enrolled in vocat ional t rainings. These evaluati ons will

be att ended by the Block Incharges, Zone sta ff, Commi tt ee representati ve and program

staff. On t he pilot basis evaluati ons were done at the K otra block YRC and have b een

subsequently shared with the block.

Youth E nergy E ntrepreneurs hip Program (YEE P)

YEEP aims to address the problems o f elect ri ficati on in rural villages where access to t he

elect ricity gri d is largely absent or the electri city s uppl y is quite er ratic. T hrough t he

promoti on of solar l ights YEEP provides opportunities o f sel f em ployment and

entrepreneurship to youths in the U daipur di str ict that are at risk of urban migration. It is

a three year proj ect and is expected to become fully s elf-su fficient in its thi rd year.

Last year, Seva Mandir selected entrepreneurs, mapped and s elected the product /

manu fac turer, conducted a basel ine household survey, w orked to build the capacity of

entrepreneurs t hrough orient ation and trai ning and devel oped a relati ons hip with a local college (College of T echnol ogy A nd Engi neering). Seva Mandi r focused on technica l

pro fi ciency and entrepreneurship skills duri ng training. Seva Mandi r market ed the project

by fir st conducti ng research into rural marketing and t hen engaging a baseli ne photo

documentary. In s hor t, fol lowi ng progress has been made ti ll now:


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• Completion of dat a analys is and data collec tion for the baseline hous ehold survey.

• Completion and signi ng o f the Memorandum of Underst anding with bot h D.Light and

Boond.

• Rural marketi ng to begin foll owing the completion of the out standing phot o docum entari es. Pos ters will be designed as well as pamphl ets for distributi on.

• Purchasing of demo kits (one lamp of each vari ety), through the seed grant will

provide re ference and demonst rati on materia l t o entrepreneurs.

• Dist ribution of tool kits.

Gatividhi Kendra (Acti vi ty centers)

The act ivity centers are housed wi thin t he government school s and are run by Seva

Mandir t eachers. T he main obj ecti ve of t he program i s to enabl e the students t o have meaningful and joy ful educati on by provi ding various opport uniti es and exposures t o

learni ng which they are not able to get in mai nstream schools. T hrough thes e centers

Seva Mandir is trying to build concept ua l underst anding of chi ldren i n the subj ects of

Math and Hi ndi. At present 4 acti vity cent ers are functioni ng i n Badgaon block. In

compari son to l ast academic year , though t he number of teachers in t hese schools has

increased, i n Undithal School, the teacher-st udent ra tio is still very low. I t has also been

observed that new appointments of t eachers are not helpi ng children much due to t he

issues li ke teacher absent eeism.

Support from G overnm ent

The last one and hal f years, worki ng in governm ent schools, has been a great learning

experience . Seva Mandir received mixed res pons es from diffe rent schools. In the Sel u

government school, Head Master and teachers a re providing support to the i nstruct ors of

the Acti vity center . A ll the prim ary cl asses have regular set timings for activity cent er per

week. In the N egadia government school t eachers assign their children i n cl ass 5, 4 hours

per w eek in the ac tivity cent er and for classes 1 and 2 up to 5 hours per week. T his time

table is being follow ed regul arly. T he est ablis hment of a good rel ationshi p with school i s

helping to implementing new methods of t eaching in cl assroom

On the ot her hand, in the U shan government school, i n spit e of i mmense effor ts, t he

center could not function proper ly and Seva Mandir had to c lose the center. T he Seva

Mandir instructors were not given suffi cient ti me and space in t he classrooms.

Capacity building of facili tators

Duri ng the course of the period 8 faci lit ators are associ ated with t he program. In t he

beginning of this academic year the schools were closed for summ er vaca tion and new

faci lit ators were placed i n the residenti al s easonal school for one week w here they got


52

hands on training in teachi ng and int eracti ng with children. Apart from t his, two major workshops were organized on pedagogy. T he brie f o f these workshops are as follow s:

Workshop on teachi ng and Learning Met hods A t wo day teacher tra ining workshop was hel d for t eachers j ointly from the Act ivit y Centers and the SKs at Seva Mandir in April. T he w orkshop was lead by Mrs. Linda, a

mathem atics teacher in Engl and. T he t heme during the workshop w as t hat every child i s

special and that al l chil dren learn in different w ays, t herefore, the t eaching met hods

should also be different.

Workshop on use of TLM (Teaching Learning Materi al ) In t he month of September , a two day workshop w as organi zed for the Acti vity Center

faci lit ators on t he use of di ffe rent ai ds in pri mary m ath teaching. A long with activit y

center ’s fac ilitators, instruct ors from few SKs al so participat ed in the workshop. Thi s

workshop was conduct ed with the help of t he res ource pers on from an O rganizat ion, Jodo

Gyan2. T he mai n focus o f the w orkshop w as to know var ious uses o f the mater ials which

were provided to t he cent ers to support math c lass.

Bi monthly meet ing Apart from t he workshops, a var iety of e f fort s are made t o enhance the e ffec tiveness of

the cent ers. One of t hese e fforts is the arrangem ent of regular bimonthly meetings wit h

the facil itators. In these meetings facil itat ors share their progress and gi ve deta iled reports

on the acti viti es they carr ied out for di fferent cl asses.

Activities to enhance learning skill s Puppet maki ng workshop: A Puppet m aking w orkshop was held on 26th July at Negadi a

Act ivit y Cent re. Along wit h the children and inst ructors of that centre, inst ructors from

other 3 activit y centers, Pipad, Sel u and Undithal also par tici pated in t he workshop.

Around 50 children from class 4 to class 8 (i ncluding chil dren of tuit ion center)

parti cipated i n the workshop. A part from creative ar t and cra ft activities, the mai n

objecti ve of the workshop w as to help children to take interest i n stories and use puppet s

as a medium t o connect wit h t he st ories.

S tory t elling- writing workshop: A story tel ling workshop w as organi zed i n the month of

August at Se lu act ivity cent er. Chi ldren from class 5 to cl ass 8 took part in the workshop.

Chi ldren m ade t he ir ow n st ories in the groups and presented through puppets and picture

cards. T here was a bri e f di scussion w ith the facilitators about t he importance of story-

telling in l anguage learning. Teachers from the government school also par tici pated in t he

workshop.

2 Jodo Gyan is an organization wor king on ac tiv ity based education and m akes package of modules and

TLM for ma thematics


53

Math Day ce lebrat ion: In the month of September, Mat hemati cs day was celebrated a t t he P ipad acti vity center. Facil itat ors from al l the centers participated i n thi s celebra tion.

Chi ldren from class 1 to cl ass 6 were divided in t he groups according to their academi c

level and t heir ability in m athematics. Facilit ators prepared thei r l esson pl ans for t eaching

diffe rent concepts o f mathem atics such as count ing, pl ace val ues, addition, subtrac tion, multipli cati on and geometry. T hi s act ivity has provided t hem an environment to increase

their interest towards the subj ect and al so helped t o remove t heir fear for the s ubj ect.

T eachers o f governm ent school al so visited each group and spent significant t ime t o

understand the process of sel f l earning and learning by doing.

Impact

One o f the biggest achievements of the program is t hat t he l earning l evel of t he children

at t he cent ers is improving. Extra school hour classes are great support to the children of

class 6 t o 8. In the board exam of 2009-2010 year, 26 (90%) chil dren i n class 8 passed t he

exam wit h good numbers. T hese resul ts are comparati vely better than the previous result s

o f board exams.

Bal S amuh (Chil dren’s Group) At present 11 B al Samuh centers are runni ng in the urban slum areas. T he objectives of

these cent ers are to provide support t o ensure improved academi c per formance o f the

children in school and also reducing t he drop outs from the s chool . The children enroll ed

in t hese centers are mainly from l ow financia l background and vul nerable backgrounds .

These centers are run for marginali zed popul ations in urban areas. G enerall y their

parents are not lite rate and hence are not able to help t he child i n his academ ics.

At present 220 children are enrolled in t hese 11 centers incl udi ng 109 boys and 111 girls.

Out of these 34 % of children are st udyi ng 1s t

cl ass. It has a lso been observ ed that

children from higher cl asses t urn up in low num bers. O ut of these 220 children 45 %

children are from pri vate schools and rest st udy in government schools. T hese cent ers run

for 2 hours in the eveni ng. Every Bal Samuh enrol ls 20 student s. C onsideri ng t he

fi nanc ial conditions and as per parents ’ approval fee for the center has been fi xed a t

Rs. 10 per m onth and i n some cases i ts Rs. 5. In the l ast year a t otal of R s. 10, 980 were

collec ted as a fee which i s 67-30 % o f total expected am ount of Rs. 16,315. T hi s

percentage i ncreased from l ast year and was deposited in the colony development

commi ttee’s account .

Every month an eval uation is conduct ed t o asses s t he per formance o f t he chi ldren. During

the first six months of the acad emic year t he per formance remains rel ati vely low. T hi s

generall y ri ses wit h the academi c year , and by the time o f annual exam the course is al so

revised many tim es t o prepare these student s for the ex am. T he t est results w ere generall y

high acros s the board. Every Saturday one hour is reserved for acti vities such as general

knowledge, singing, drawing, gam es and sport s. All important festi va ls and important


54

occasions are ce lebrated at the cent ers. T hese days i nclude Ambedkar j ayanti, Maharana Pratap jayanti, Independence day et c.

In t he past year 45 parent t eacher meeti ngs and 31 quart erl y camps were organized. T he

quarter ly cam ps are organized with t he objective of increasi ng the communit y parti cipati on i n t he working of the cent ers, speci all y t he participation of colony

commi ttees.

Conclusion

In the pas t year, Seva Mandir em phasized on capaci ty building of ins tructors and on

encouraging more and more enrollment of children t hrough innovative trainings and

acti viti es. Per form ance monitor ing of activities was also a fo cus area. For the coming

year, the learni ngs from t hese m oni toring resul ts will be incorporated in st rategi es. High-

potenti al initiatives like YEEP are expec ted t o show good progres s.


55

Health Programme

Maternal Health Program

The maternal health programme was continued wi th the objective of im proving m aternal

health care norms in the communit ies. It had two key com ponent s, community bas ed

intervention through a cadre o f trained T raditi onal Birth Attendants (TBAs) and Maternal

Heal th Ins urance t o facilitate comm uniti es t o acces s instit utional care.

Community B ased Interventi on

The communit y based int erventi on on maternal health w as carr ied out in 152 vil lages.

Last year, a tot al of 310 T BA s were in contract wit h GVCs, of them 298 had taken

trai ning and rem aining 12 T BA s did not parti cipate i n inducti on trai ning. H ence 298

TBAs were working i n the last financi al year. T his year , contracts for 27 T BA s were

disconti nued by the respect ive vi llage development committ ees as they w ere not regular

in t he ir w ork. A t ot al of 67 new TB As w ere t rained. At present, agai nst t arget of 341 TBAs, a tota l of 338 T BAs are facili tati ng maternal healt h services in 152 vill ages across

the 5 blocks.

a. Capacity B uilding Induction Traini ng:

A t otal of 67 new TB As were trai ned during t his repor ti ng period. The discussi ons on

existing practice revealed that the TBAs w ere doing onl y deli veries, not antenatal and

post natal care. T he T BAs also reported not using equipment s/tool s needed for sa fe

delivery, conduct ing del iveri es di rectl y on floor wi thout us e of any cloth/plastic.

Training s essions were conducted on the gaps that were ident ifi ed in t heir practi ce and

also clari fying the various m yths and misconceptions. T he sessions included component s

o f ant enatal and post nat al and new -born care, sa fe deli very ( including dem onstration),

identi fi cation o f risks and proper re ferral. Cont racepti ve usage and the i mportance of

birt h spacing the bi rths was also included in t he training sessions. T hese were conduct ed

by senior gynecologists from the distr ict hospita l and thereafter intens ive group exercis es

were done wit h the T BA s by the internal training team to reinforce t he sessions. T he

TBAs were also provi ded with a kit cons isti ng of tools and equipments for conduct ing

safe and asept ic de livery. O n the last day of the t raining an exposure visi t to the mat ernit y

secti on of Dist rict Hospi tal and the Sat ell ite Hospital was organized for the TB As wit h the objective of famili arizing them with t he working procedure of the hospital s as t hey

accompany pregnant w om en t o the hospita ls for insti tutional care.

Refresher T rainings:


56

Duri ng the reporti ng period, w e conducted one round of re fres her training for t he T BA s o f al l three grades. The re fresher t raining was conducted for 4 days for each grade o f

TBAs separat ely. T his year, the a ttendance o f the T BA s in refresher trai ning improved t o

78% from 45% in l ast year . Gi ven the problem o f l ow part icipation of t he TB As i n

trai nings last year , thi s year, a lot of focus w as put to improve their par tici pation i n trai nings. The dis cussions revea led that m any of the T BA s were not coming to t he

trai nings as it would mean a loss o f wage for them for the t raining days. A fte r severa l

rounds of consultat ions, t he da ily all owance for T BA s for at tending tra inings was

increased from Rs. 50 to R s. 100. A long w ith t his, the teams al so had put efforts to

moti vate the T BAs to attend the t raini ngs.

The contents and t echniques o f the trai nings w ere designed according to grad es of T BA s

so as to convey the maximum underst andable mater ial. T he trai ning content w as based on

‘teaching learni ng’ technique. T eaching aids included char ts, role plays, songs, group

discussi ons, fl ip cards, dum mies, pl ays, practi ce sessions, case studi es, audios and videos,

posters et c. In each t raining, the fi rst halves of trai ning days were l ed by expert s

(gynecologists and s enior doct ors) follow ed by prac tice group sessions of T BA s l ed by

internal training t eam. T his hel ped the T BAs i nternal ize w hat the lead t rainers had

explained in t he pl enary ses sions. Key sessi ons covered were antena tal care, sa fe deli very

and post natal care .

Bl ock level R eview Meet ings:

Tw o rounds of review meet ings w ere conducted for t he T BAs o f all three grades wi th t he

purpose o f re in forci ng the topics covered under the previous tra inings, sharing of w ork by

the T BAs and addressi ng problems encountered by the TBAs during thei r work,

dissem inati ng new informati on and re fil ling o f thei r kits w it h m edicines and other

supplies. In additi on, i nform ation w as taken on cases of mat ernal and child deat hs that

occurred i n t heir w ork areas. In the review m eetings, T BA s were a lso suggested t o

faci lit ate m eeti ngs with t he pregnant wom en in their work areas to counsel them on care

during pregnancy. T he attendance of the TBAs i n review meetings was 74% and 86%

respect ively.

b. Outreach of TBA s Provision of Antenat al, Nat al and Postnat al Care :

A total o f 7,126 w omen received at l east one servi ce from t he T BA s during the reporti ng

period compared to 5,874 women during t he last year. T he TBAs facilitat ed 4,963

deliver ies, of w hich 2691 were conduct ed by T BAs at home and the rest 2272 were

inst itut ional deli veries faci lit ated by the TBAs.

The percentage o f instit utional deliveries has increas ed only by 2% i. e., 46% in thi s report ing period compared to 44% in last year. Looki ng at the t rend of i ns tit utional

deliver ies in our work area, t hough there was a jump in i nstitutional deliver ies from 11%

to 32% in the init ial tw o years but then i n the las t t wo years the percentage of i ns tit utional

deliver ies became stagnant a t 44%-46%. T he initial jump coul d have been due to Janani


57

Suraksha Yojna3 , but t he im pact of JSY has already star ted w aning, wit h stagnat ion in

percentage o f instituti onal de liver ies.

Village level meetings:

In addi tion to t he fac ilitati on of antenata l, natal and post natal care, t he T BA s fo cused on meeti ngs with pregnant and lactating women dur ing this reporti ng period. A tot al of 747

meeti ngs w ere conduct ed by the T BA s i n the reporting per iod. Most of the m eetings were

conducted on immuni zation days w hen the T BAs gathered the women for antenata l

check-ups. It has been observed that the w omen com e up w ith a number of iss ues present

at t heir personal as w ell as s ocietal leve l w hich have direct im plica tions on the health of

the pregnant woman. T he T BAs als o us ed these pla tforms to address the m yt hs and

mis conceptions related to m aternal health by givi ng exam ples of good practi ces by

women in t he communiti es. T hes e focus ed and s mall group meetings helped t he T BAs t o

work more closely with t he women of t heir vil lage and address the m ost pressi ng

problems of t he communit y through t hese discussions. The m eeti ngs have also hel ped

them to ga in m ore t rust from the wom en of their communities.

Impact of the work of T BAs:

Duri ng the repor ting per iod, focus group discussions w ere conducted w it h the wom en

from 30 vill ages to get a greate r understanding on the impact of the T BAs’ w ork on

maternal health. T he FGDs were done i n both groups of villages - work area of T BA s &

non-work area of T B As to compare the stat us of mat ernal heal th. T he discussi ons

indicat ed a better underst anding and improved practi ces related to maternal health care in

the out reach a reas of trained TBAs.

The FG Ds revealed that the average number of ant enatal checkups was three in villages

with T BA s as compared to average tw o antenata l checkups i n villages without trai ned

TBAs. In terms of qual ity of antenat al checkups, the components of routine ant e natal

checkups were found to be i n higher percent age in vill ages w ith trai ned T BA s compared

to t he villages without trained TBAs. O nly 6% wom en in vill ages w ithout T BA rece ived

any post natal check up agai nst 68% of women i n areas w it h trai ned TBA. A furt her

analysis of these num bers show ed t ha t t hese 6% of w omen from non-w ork area rece ived

post nat al care because they had gon e t o some health faci lit y due t o some health problem

in post nat al period.

In t he vil lages wit h trained TBAs, 41% of t he deliveries were at home compared to 17%

home deliveri es in non T BA vil lages. Anal ysis of the reasons for higher home deliveries

in T BA vill ages indicated t ha t if women di d not have any complica tion preferred to

deliver at home wit h assistance from t rained T BA as it woul d save them from many

hassles such as arrangement of vehi cle, t ravel t ime and t he difficult ies i n the healt h faci lities. In spi te of the incent ive for inst itutional del ivery, women reported to prefer

home del ivery if they had an al ternative service for sa fe delivery.

3 Incentive scheme for promoting institu tional de liveries under National Rur al Health Mission


58

c. Mat ernal Deaths Duri ng the report ing peri od si x cases of maternal deaths w ere report ed in Kherw ara block

and three in Girwa block. V erbal autopsi es of the maternal deat hs could not be done due

to del ay in receiving dea th i nformation. Till now t he syst em of reporti ng of deaths w as through t he review m eeti ng of t he T BA s. As t he frequ ency o f the T BA revi ew meeti ngs

was reduced, the deat h reporti ng got delayed. Also, we had been facing problem i n

analyzing t he number of deaths as we lack a population bas e for the repor ted deaths.

Given these problem s, we are reviewing t he syst em of m aternal death reporting.

d. Monitoring of TBAs’ Work Monitor ing of the work o f the T BAs w as done regularl y by the programme team

members and zonal teams t hrough int eracti ve int erview s w it h benefi ciari es of the TBAs.

Monitor ing formats were used to collect information on t he work of t he TBAs. In t he

report ing peri od, 361 benefi ciari es o f 100 T BA s across t he four bl ocks were cont acted for

monit oring t he T BAs’ work.

Som e of t he iss ues that came up during the monitoring were- coupons ret ained by t he

TBAs inst ead of giving t o benefi ciari es, benefici aries unaware of use and i mportance of

coupons , improper distributi on of calci um pills to pregnant women and l esser number of

children gett ing immuni zed. The monit oring was also hel pful in verificat ion o f the TBAs’

work and taking correct ive measures. Effor ts w ere m ade to address t he issues t ha t cam e

fort h in monit or ing t he w ork o f the T BAs through di scussions with t he T BAs on the spot

as w ell as during review meetings.

Comprehensive Obstetr ic Ins urance Program

The Comprehensive Insurance programme aims at reduci ng maternal and i nfant mortalit y

and morbi dity by increasing access to prena tal care and counseli ng and removing bar riers

that prevent women from accessi ng obstet ric care w hen it is most needed. T his i nit iati ve

was carr ied out in Kherw ara bl ock in two pilot phases ending i n December 2010. Duri ng

the repor ting peri od the pil ot w as scaled up as a program me in K herwara and Kotra

blocks gi ven the s uccess of the pilot. A revi ew of t he pilot phases was conduct ed whi ch

included in-depth interviews with 68 women who had t aken the insurance policy and 46

women who had not taken t he poli cy. T he key findings w ere:

• 79% o f the pol icy hol ders had gone for at least one antenatal check up against 54% of

non policy holders who had taken at least one ant enatal check up.

• Frequency o f ant enatal checkups by pol icy hol ders i ncreased from fi rst pilot round t o

second pilot round- 32% women took tw o ANCs i n fi rst phase compared t o 42% women i n second phase

• 76% of the policy hol ders w ere aware of JSY, still opted for the insurance policy.

Re-launch of Insurance in Kherwara block


59

In J une 2010, t he Insurance was re- launch ed i n the 18 pilot villages and was extended to 6 new vill ages. A total of 116 women w ere enroll ed in the program against a tota l of 89

in t he second pilot phase. In this phase, onl y 37% women were pregnant at the time of

buying the insurance in t his phas e compared to 70% and 63% of pregnant women in t he

two pilot phases. T he i ncrease in percentage o f non pregnant w omen t aking t he insurance is i ndicative o f more trust on the i nsurance and also an improved understanding on t he

importance o f mat ernal healt h care in the com muniti es. Of the total 116 enrolled women,

77 women availed the insurance services for ant enatal checkups and 11 women for

delivery. D uring the repor ting period, a basel ine s urvey was also conducted on m aternal

health care practi ces and trea tment seeki ng in the pilot villages.

Ext ension of Insurance to Kot ra bl ock Duri ng the reporti ng peri od, the Insurance program was expanded to K otra block i n tw o

zones. Pre lim inary discussi ons were done at the bl ock level to understand t he treatment

seeking pa ttern o f the w omen i n pregnancy relat ed mat ters. T he di scussions reveal ed that

the people preferred goi ng to t he pri vate hospitals of Gujarat rather than t he government

health care providers within t heir vi llage as they got be tter care and t reatm ent in t he

privat e hospital and the government healthcare providers w ere not w ell equipped t o

handle cases o f complications and emergencies. After reaching a consensus that t he

program w ill benefit t he people at large, the di scussion was t aken at t he vill age level

where t he i dea w as put across i n t he zone m eetings and the vil lage development

commi ttee meetings.

Pos t this, 20 vill ages from two zones w ere selec ted which did not have acces s to

government healthcare facil iti es. The hospit als which were frequented by the peopl e were

visi ted and an in depth evaluation was done i n order to assess thei r competency i n

handling em ergency obstet ri c compli cati ons. Two hos pitals w ere sel ected one of w hi ch

was already enrolled under the program i n Kherwara Block. MoU w as signed with t he

second hospit al a ft er negoti ati ons on t he cost of treatment.

2-day training was organized at the block level with the zonal team and three groups of

communit y workers i. e. t he T BAs, t he Bal wadi Sanchal ikas & the B al Sakhis. T hes e

communit y w orkers were trai ned to hol d consultati ons in the villages and sell insurance.

Village cons ultations w ere conduct ed by t he community w orkers and were facilitated by

the zonal and heal th programme team members. T his was fol lowed by sale of Ins urance

for t wo months (October 2010-November 2010). A tot al of 112 wom en bought t he

Insurance. Of these 112 w omen, 48 w omen avail ed antenata l checkups and 3 wom en

availed servi ces for del ivery.

Child Health Program

Home Based Care of the Neonates & Infants


60

Neonata l and infant health care is facil itat ed by t rained young women called Bal Sakhis. Thei r key role incl udes new born care and managem ent of contingenci es such as

hypot hermi a, l ow birth weight, identifi cati on o f dang er signs and appropriate re fe rral ;

counseling on breast feedi ng for chil dren aged 0-6 mont hs and counsel ing on weaning and

nutrition for children above 6 months. At present, a tot al of 53 Bal Sakhis a re w orking i n 34 villages across the five blocks.

a. Capacity B uilding Refresher T raining:

The re fresher trai ning was a residential 6-day training conducted for the Bal Sakhi s o f al l

the five blocks. Of t he 53 B al Sakhi s, 43 part icipat ed in the training. T he training sessi ons

were conducted by Pediatr icians and w ere then rein forced through group ex ercis es led by

the t eam members. T he t raining focus ed on rei nforci ng the sessions that were covered i n

the induction trai ning, adding to the skill s of the Bal Sakhi s based on their w ork

per formance and personal com petencies and dissemination of new in form ation. T he key

sessions w ere on neonat al contingency managem ent, primary care and re ferral for

childhood illness, nutriti on counseling, im munization, bi rth s pacing and contraception.

Among these, few sess ions w ere gi ven more focus as gaps w ere found in the knowl edge

and practi ce of the B al Sakhis, like w eaning, growth monitori ng, lactati ng m other’ s

nutrition and birth spac ing and cont racepti ve use.

Exposure Vi sit:

The Bal Sakhis oft en have to take the chi ldren from their comm unities or accompany t he

fam ily m embers to t he distri ct hospital for treatment of childhood illness. Exposure visit

to t he Pediat ric W ard and Malnouri shment T reatm ent Center w as a part of this trai ning t o

acquaint the B al Sakhi s with the hospi tal setting and the var ious procedures that need t o

be followed for getting treatm ent.

Review Meetings:

Duri ng the reporti ng period, three review meetings of B al Sakhis were conducted i n all

the five blocks. T he average at tendance o f the Bal Sakhis in the review meetings was

93%. The review meetings aim ed at re freshing the t heoreti cal concept s and to address t he

problems faced by the B al Sakhis in t heir w ork. In addition, records were checked and

informati on was taken on t he number o f chil dren reached out by t he Bal Sakhis. In t he

fi rst round o f review meetings, whi le checki ng the records maint ained by t he B al Sakhi s

it was found that many o f them were not plotting t he growth monitor ing card correctly. A

lot of focus w as on t eaching them t he correct pro cedure o f growt h monit oring dur ing t he

review meetings and the refresher trai ning.

Another area that was not being covered properl y by the Bal Sakhis w as counseling for birt h spacing and contracept ive use. T hough they w ere counse ling t he wom an about t he

importance o f spac ing the birt hs but it w asn’ t being com plimented by shari ng informati on

about the availability of contracept ives. T he review meetings and t he re fresher trai ni ng

also fo cused on this gap area.


61

W hile sharing their experience o f w orking i n the com munit ies, the B al Sakhis sai d that

initially it w as diffi cult t o get trust of the peopl e but w ith their continuous cont act wit h

the families they have been able to gain trust and gradual ly care givers of children have

star ted l ist ening t o thei r advice.

b. Outreach of B al Sakhis Duri ng the reporti ng peri od, t he Bal Sakhis reached out t o 2,876 children. T hese number

o f chi ldren reached out by the Bal Sakhis i nclude t hose children w ho were contac ted for

nutrition counse ling, new born care and treatment for illness. A s w e are still worki ng on

the MIS for t he Bal Sakhis work, w e have not been able to spec ify the num ber o f chil dren

reached out for each ki nd of servi ce.

Duri ng the reporting peri od, a st udy w as car ried out by a vol unteer from Norwegi an

University to as sess and understand the work o f the B al Sakhis on neonatal and in fant

health care. 15 Bal Sakhis w ere shadow ed by t he volunteer during t heir work. T he key

fi ndings of the study are as menti oned below:

• Bal Sakhis have gained recognition and trust in the community with thei r w ork. T BA s

had been very help ful to t he Bal Sakhis t o get recognition in their respecti ve

communities.

• Bal Sakhis were doing very good counseling on i ssues like colostrums and

breast feeding, imm uni zati on and the mothers/care givers were fol lowing thei r advi ce

to a great extent.

• Counseli ng on w eaning and nutr iti on was found to be inadequate. Counsel ing on

nut rition w as very genera l and nut rit ion education w as not based on nutriti on status of

the chi ldren. T hey were also not doing recipe tri als.

• Contraceptive us e and bir th spaci ng was another a rea i n which Bal Sakhis w ere not

gi ving m uch focus. Most of them were found hesitant t o t alk t o women on this issue.

Refresher trai nings and the revi ew meeti ngs held during t he reporting period focused on

these gap areas to enhance their knowledge and communi cati on skil ls on these is sues.

Immunizat ion Cam p

Immuni zati on camps are current ly bei ng run i n 68 l ocations. D uring the reporting period,

790 camps were conducted against the target of 816 cam ps , whi ch means 96.8% of

camps w ere held against 95% in research per iod and 93.5% in previous year. A tot al of

26 camps had to be cancel led due to vari ous reasons such as festiva ls, di fficult y i n

reachi ng camp si tes due to m ons oon and unavailabi lity of nurse in some blocks for few

months. Of t he 790 camps, 6.2% camps got delayed compared t o 7.7% in l ast reporti ng

period.

A total o f 2,489 chi ldren were regist ered i n the camp against 2,045 children regist ered i n

previous year. A part from the routine vaccinati on, 1,183 children were given treatment


62

for diseases such as fev er, cough, cold, measles, eye or ear i nfecti on, diar rhea and skin infection in the immunization camps. The camps al so regist ered 1,449 women for

antenata l checkups against 1,408 women in l ast reporti ng period. Of these tota l registered

women, 1,405 received one dose of tet anus toxoid vacci ne and 1,164 w omen rece ived

both t he doses. In additi on to the vaccines, the women also received antenat al checkups – hemoglobin t est, ur ine test, blood press ure measure and counseli ng on care dur ing

pregnancy.

Duri ng the reporti ng period, much focus w as spent on im proving the qualitati ve aspect s

o f t he immunizat ion camps and updati ng the MIS. A rrangem ents w ere made t o improve

and ensure the col d chain m aintenance of t he vaccines. Under the MIS system, w e al so

introduced separate rosters for recording antenatal checkups and for recording t he

services provi ded to ill chil dren. W e st reamlined the previous formats that had been used

for reporti ng to Block and Head O ffi ces. In consulta tion wit h the Computer Unit, w e

added the antenatal and chil d illness records to our exist ing immunization dat abase. W e

will now be able t o generat e data on the number of wom en recei ving compl ete antenatal

care at t he cam ps.

W e were also abl e to comple te the m idli ne survey report on immuni zation status of

children in treatm ent and compar ison area. T he survey dat a indicat ed that 60% of t he

children received compl ete immunization in t he treatment a rea as compared t o 35%

children wit h complete immunization in the compari son hamlets. As com pared to t he

baseli ne data of 4.2% o f com pl ete immuni zati on rat e, the com plete immunization rate has

shown a high ri se both in t reatm ent and comparison a reas. How ever, from the da ta it is

obvious that the immunizat ion stat us has been much bett er in the t reat ment area as

compared to t he compar ison area.

Duri ng the report ing period, a review of Seva Mandir’ s B alw adi programme indica ted t he

need to immunize the children enrolled in t he Balwadi centers. H ence, a new initi ati ve

was pl anned to immunize t he chil dren by conducting m ont hly immuniza tion days for

continuous t hree months in al l the 196 B alw adis. A lot of e ffort was put to plan t he

logistics and prepare the s chedul e for the i mmunizat ion days i n consult ation wit h team

members of health and wom en& child developm ent program. A basel ine study on

imm unizati on stat us o f chil dren enroll ed in B alwadi s was also conducted. T he s tudy

reveal ed very low rates of complet e immunization- only 19% among t hese children.

Adol escent Health Awareness Program

The adolescent healt h aw areness program was continued for enhancing the knowledge o f

the adoles cent boys and gir ls from the rural com munit ies on reproductive and sexua l

health issues. Dur ing the reporti ng period, 614 adolescents (both boys and gi rls) from

vill ages o f 16 Y outh R esource Centers were reached out through these camps agai nst t he

target of 600 adol escents. T he maj or topics covered under t hese trai nings were as

foll ows:


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• Body Mappi ng: the parti cipants w ere asked to draw t he human body and name the parts w hich showed their level of knowl edge about their own body and how t hey

perceive it.

• Physi cal & Emotional changes during adolescence: in this session t he parti cipants

were m ade to list dow n the physical changes t ha t they observe within t hemselves

when they reach t he stage of puberty like the growth i n height, growth of hai r on t he

body, cracki ng of voice (boys), star ting of menst ruati on (girls) etc. T he parti cipants

raised various questions relat ed to t hese changes and also reported many myths and

misconcept ions. All their queries and the m yths w ere addressed in this sessi on.

• Reproduct ive Syst em: this session was facilitated wit h the use of an apron indicati ng

the various genital organs and how t hey are pl aced in the hum an body. This was

follow ed by sharing i nformation on menst rual cycle and then conception of chi ld. For

adol escent girls, t he discussions on menstrual cycle stress ed upon personal hygi ene

dur ing menstruation and the girls were also t aught t o prepare sanitary napkins.

• Gender: a lot of discuss ions were held wit h the adoles cent on the practices in t he

communities w hich w ere gender biased. T he adolescent s were helped to underst and

the reason for such di scriminat ions and were facil it ated to t hi nk of thei r role i n

promoting equal gender relati ons.

• Sexual Health: t he participant s were given information on sexual health – r isks of

unsafe sex, sexually transmitted infecti ons and HIV/AIDS and i nform ation on safe

sexual pract ice and safe aborti on. T he sessi on also i nc luded detail informat ion on

cont racept ives and birt h spaci ng met hods

The adolescents though ini ti ally hesitant, showed interest in the sessions as the t raini ng

progressed. T he girl s asked ques tions about the menstrual cycle and rel ated myt hs and

mis conceptions. T here were some gi rls who had probl ems of ir regular menstrual cycl e

and were advised t o take t he medica l advice. Some w ere i nterested to know about t he

options of sa fe abortions ava ilable and its costs. T he adolescent boys fr eely discuss ed

issues such as pre-marital sex, unsafe sexual practices etc . T he trainings had been help ful

in clearing many myths and misconcepti ons rela ted to reproductive and sexual healt h

among t he adolescents and also in adding correct informati on to their knowl edge.

Duri ng the reporti ng period, consult ations were held with non-school going adolescents

to understand t he reason for not attending the trainings. The reasons that came fort h were

that m ost of the non school-goi ng adolescents were working and hence attending t he

trai ning for three days w ould mean a loss of w ag es. A lso, they expressed that they fel t

uncom fort able t o att end the training wit h the s chool going children as they considered

themselves t o be les s competent. Given t hese reasons, i n the next reporting peri od, w e

would fo cus more on buil ding capacities o f the faci lit ators of YR Cs and peer youth

leaders from t he Y RC catchm ent vi llages. T hese trained youth wi ll then do small t raini ng

sessions with the non-s chool going adolescents i n the village as per their convenience .


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Community Care Cen ter The Community Care C enter (CCC ) located in Udaipur cit y conti nued to provide services

for peopl e li ving with H IV/AIDS. T he services included medical advice; medici nes for

common opportuni stic infec tions, counseling concerni ng fami ly, soci al dis criminati on

and i n-patient care to PLHA s who start ed A nti-Ret roviral Treatment. Duri ng t he

report ing peri od, a t ot al of 1,037 patients were regist ered at the CCC, agai nst t he 746

patients i n last year. Of the total pati ents, 670 w ere on anti -retroviral treatm ent, whil e t he

remai ning 367 w ere cur rentl y not t aking any t reatment. T he drug adherence rate among

the patient s w ho were on ART has been 61. 57%.

A t otal of 474 patient s rece ived treatment for oppor tunistic infecti ons such as chroni c

diarrhea, bacteri al infections (res pirat ory) herpes zoster, candi asis et c. Duri ng t he

report ing period the CCC has reached out to 771 HIV positi ve peopl e through it s

outreach activities. U nder t hese outreach acti viti es, the fiel d workers did home visits of

the regist ered PLHA s and counseled t hem and their famil y mem bers on home based care ,

checked drug adherence and followed up on tests for CD 4 counts. Duri ng the reporti ng

period, death of 30 pat ients was report ed. The CCC also car ried out cer tain acti viti es for

the in-patients such as yoga, meditation, interactive counse ling, and celebra tion during

fest ivals and birthdays, li nking t he PLHAs t o other programs such as chi ld line, short st ay

home etc. Training sessions on care o f pat ients, sexually t ransmi tted i nfect ions and

oppor tunistic infections were also conducted for t he team m embers of the CCC.

Referral Health Cen ters

The re fe rral healt h centre at Kochl a in Jhadol bl ock has been providi ng healt h servi ces t o

the villagers of t he K ochl a and nearby zones for over 10 years. Duri ng this year , a tot al of

925 patients w ere regist ered at this RHC compared to 789 in t he last year. Of these total 925 patients, 281 were mal es, 492 females and 117 w ere chil dren. O ut of t he total

patients w ho visi ted t he hospit al, 19 underwent laboratory t ests and 23 women rece ived

antenata l checkups. T he center also had 30 visits by a lady doctor and 68 gynae pat ient s

were provided treatment. A part from t he regular outdoor treatment services, tw o eye

camps w ere faci lit ated by t he R HC in collaboration wit h Alakh N ayan Mandir where 35

patients w ere treat ed.

The re fe rral health center at K ojaw ada in Kherw ara bl ock reached out to a tot al of 4316

patients against 3796 pati ents duri ng the l ast year. O f t hese 4316 patient s, 74 pat ient s

recei ved inpati ent t reatment and 15 were re ferred to the district hospital. The m aximum number o f pat ients received treatment for pyrexia o f unknown ori gin (PUO- 1328)

foll owed by upper respiratory tract infection (UR I-736), gastro int estinal dis eases (531)

and skin infecti on (564) . D uring the reporti ng per iod, a total of 27 camps w ere al so

conducted in four vil lages t o increase the publicit y of t he Kojaw ada R HC and also t o


65

extend t he services to more people. T he camps reached out to 190 patient s with treatment and medi cation at a subsi dized cost.

Addressin g Anemi a

The i nt ervention on addressing anemia t hrough decentral ized fl our fort ifi cation w as

initiat ed in 2009 wi th the award money from W orl d Bank Development Marketplace

2009. T he intervention reached out to 22 villages through 46 vil lage l evel flour mill s

against the t arget of 50 m ill s. At the initi ation of t he projec t, a total of 50 vill age level

mills were invol ved in the project, however i n due course o f ti me 4 mills dropped out due

to c losure of t he mill s.

In t he preparatory phase w e t ried to develop new techniques for automati c forti fica tion t o

ensure high take up rates of forti fied flour. H owever, due t o delay, we opted for using the

fort i fi cation equi pment t hat w as desi gned in the research phase and special bags were

designed and distributed to deal with the problem of ir regular for ti ficati on. T he villagers

were tra ined t o take the grai ns for mi lli ng in these bags. T he m illers were also informed

to forti fy flour o f all those who br ing grai ns i n these bags w ithout asking so as to follow

the initial defaul t deci sion to forti fy.

Duri ng the reporting peri od, a tot al of 10,008 kgs preblend was supplied to t he mille rs of

which 898 kg o f prebl end was unused and ret urned b ack. T he net use o f preblend w as

9,110 kg w hich means forti fi cation of a minimum of 911, 000 kg o f flour and a maximum

o f 1, 822, 000 kg of flour. As compared to t he research peri od the prebl end consumpti on

rate had been lower during this project phas e, i n research period t he average preblend

consumpti on was 20 kg while duri ng the reporting period it has been 17 kg per mill. A

study w as conducted t o understand the reason for the low er consum pt ion ra tes and t he reasons for low take up rate of for ti fied flour. The report of the study i s aw ait ed.

A s part of monitor ing, regular random checks of all the mills w ere conducted to ensure

that the mil l ow ners were able to forti fy as p er the qual ity requirem ents of forti fied flour .

Spot tes ts w ere done for samples of for ti fied flour t aken from 190 households from t he

project area. T he random check data s how ed that 86% of the mill ers met t he qualit y

requirement. Thes e mi llers were re-oriented on the process of forti fica tion t hrough on-

spot trai nings as well as during t heir bimont hly meetings.

One of t he maj or chal lenges faced i n thi s intervention is ensuri ng the high t ake up rate o f fort i fi ed fl our. T hough we had distr ibuted special printed bags to vi llagers for carrying

grains for milling to ensure high take up rat es of for ti fied flour, we felt that this did not

work much for m aintai ning high take up rat e. T he few reas ons for drop i n take rates were

closure of flour mills for personal reasons o f the mille rs or elect ric ity problem, villagers

milling at home when they have sm all quantity or w hen they don’ t have much work on

fi elds, peopl e switchi ng fl our mi lls when new fl our mills opened closer to t heir houses

etc. Also, there were gaps in educating the villagers on us e of the special pri nted bags.


66

The project peri od will end i n April 2011. A n end line survey w il l be conducted t o asses s

the outcomes of the intervention at the end of the proj ect. How ever, with t he experi ence

and learni ng from t he i ntervent ion it was felt t hat thi s model of decentral ized fl our

fort i fi cation was not very success ful due to t he lower take up rate . W e are in phase o f designing and exploring alternate st rategi es t o address the high levels of anem ia in our

work area.

Research on Improving Maternal Health

The i nit iati ve to t rack the regularity of the MC HN Days and A nganwadi Centers was

initiat ed i n January 2009. T he init iati ve was cont inued till March 2011. Duri ng t he

report ing peri od, t he research on monitoring o f 18 sub centers and 20 Anganwadi centers

in t reatment group and anot her 13 sub centers and 17 Anganw adi cent ers in cont rol group

was continued i n Jhadol block til l September 2010. The MoU with the IC DS and H ealt h

departm ent w as till June 2010 and w e ini ti ated di scussions with both these depar tment s

for extension of this project as we felt that the governm ent departments (specially t he

ICDS depart ment) was responsive to thi s int erventi on. W hi le the dialogues were goi ng

on, we conti nued m onitoring of the earl ier cent ers ti ll September 2010. In end o f

September 2010, w e got a new MoU signed wit h the ICDS depar tment wi th a new set of

20 Anganw adi C enters as desired by t he IC DS D epartm ent. Monit oring of t hese new set s

o f centers was started from November 2010.

W e also had repeat ed foll ow ups w it h the H ealt h Depar tment, but were not able to get

furt her dec ision on taking forward this intervention of m onitori ng the MCHN Days. A ft er

September 2010, t he monit oring of the MC HN Days was gradually phased out. Wi th t he

new s ets o f Anganw adis, col lecting the cameras and analyzi ng the dat a h as been quit e difficult as the A nganw adi workers were not fol lowing the protocol cor rect ly. T hey took

a lot of time in understanding and getting used to the system of camera monit oring.

Though we had been regul arly shari ng t he monitoring reports wi th the government

departm ents, we could not get much response in terms of some act ions t o address t he

high absent eeism. Whi le we were not abl e t o do much with t he Health D epartment as t he

renew al o f t he MoU to m onitor MCH N Days is stil l pending; w e have been able to

negotiat e with the ICD S Depar tment to get t heir commitment to some extent. In the new

MoU to m onitor Anganwadi C enters we incl uded a provi sion of honor ing the Anganwadi

W orkers s howing best perform ance to elevate their mot ivati on. H owever the m onitoring results show ed very hi gh absenteei sm and we could not identify any o f t he Anganwadi

W orkers as best per form ers. Gi ven lack o f any respons e from t he government

departm ent, we deci ded to phase out this inte rvention wit h end of t he current MoU i n

April 2011.


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Conclusion The work dur ing the year w as very enr iching i n terms o f learni ng from new i niti atives

and st rengthening the on -going i ntervent ions. Our li nkage w ith the G overnment Hospital

has al so been strengt hened and w e received a lot o f support from the senior gynecologist s

o f t he government hospit al i n training the T BAs and also in getting m aternal health care

for the women from our w ork areas. Feedback on t he rol e o f T B As and Bal Sakhis from

the comm uniti es rei nforced our con fiden ce in car rying forward t hese interventions i n

future. T he research on Comprehensive O bstet ric Insurance also cam e up as a very

e ffective model in addressing financi al constraints in accessing maternal health care.

Consultati ons w ith the adol escents brought forth the need to w ork on many cross cutting

issues such as gender, life skil ls etc w hich affect the lives of t he adolescent s directly or

indirectly. R eview ing the learning and experi ences of our work hel ped us to identi fy t he

gaps i n our s trat egy and al so to re-concept ualize the model t o work with adol escents in a

continuous and comprehensive m anner.

W hile the programme saw many s uccessful interventions in t he reporting peri od, there

were also few i nt erventi ons in which the results were not much encouragi ng like t he

learni ng from research on m onitoring of Anganwadi C enters & MCH N D ays. Even aft er

presenti ng fact s on the ir regular ity of service providers t o the concerned governm ent

departm ents, we w ere not abl e to get response t o these issues. However, t he research

helped us to gat her facts from fiel d to raise this issue at various forums wi th con fidence

and thus initiat e some discus sions at t he level of various st akeholders, though very

limited. T he interventi on on addressi ng anemia through decentralized fort ificati on di d

not seem to be promisi ng and led us to think of a trial on D oubl e Forti fi ed Sal t as an

alte rnati ve solution t o addres s anemia.


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Child Representa tive Progra mme

In 2004, Seva Mandir expanded its rela tionshi p wi th P lan International. Part of the new

rela tionship with P lan International, whi ch was around sponsorshi p as a means o f fund

rais ing, entail ed Seva Mandir incorpora ting a Child-C entred Approach i nto all its work.

S ince P lan rai ses its funds t hrough a s ponsorship mechanism, a variet y o f systems had t o

be established t o support t he vari ous communi cation requirem ents t hat t his ent ails, t he foll owing secti ons give a des cript ion of some of them.

For chi ld sponsorship t o function properl y it is essential t hat cert ain children are

regist ered wit h P lan International and that regul ar communication i s est abli shed betw een

the child, Seva Mandir, P lan and the sponsor. How ever, in that we saw a potential threat

o f t hese chil dren becoming speci al and recei ving speci al benefits from Seva Mandir. T o

address this issue, Seva Mandir form ul ated t he idea of treating t hese chil dren as Chil d

Representati ves, and a great emphasis has been placed on ensuri ng that thes e chil dren are

only representat ives and not recipient s of any pr eferent ial benefit s. At the s ame time, t he

Chi ld R epresent atives provi de a basis for i nt roducing the i deas o f chi ld-centred communit y devel opment. Furt hermore, since the child representati ves constit ute a

repres entative sampl e of children from Seva Mandir ’ s w ork area , t hey help t o provide a

better underst anding of the critica l issues that are being faced by children in its work area.

The programme has grow n from enrolli ng 626 child repres entati ves in 2006, to t he

current 5000 represent atives from 134 com munit ies, of w hom 56% are gi rls. 16 chil d

repres entatives died during this peri od due t o natural reasons.

Bal Manch (Children’s Grou p)

There are110 such groups, made o f chil dren o f ages 8-18, w hich mainl y aim at spreadi ng

informati on and knowl edge of child rights among other chil dren. Last year , sport s

utilities were distributed in 68 groups. The processes of naming the groups and choosi ng

group leaders were initiated. Also, t he pract ice of keepi ng tw o chil d representat ives in t he

GVCs was ini tiat ed.

Trainings

Var ious t rainings and workshops w ere organized for B al Manch members, G VC

members and fi eld workers on t he topics of chil d right s and visi on of t he program. 9

trai nings w ere hel d for the members of Bal Manchs, in w hich 483 children par tic ipated.

S imilarl y, a C hetna Shi vir was organized i n which 40 adults and 100 children

parti cipated. V arious sponsor visi ts and evaluat ions of t he program w ere also organi zed.


69

Youth Photographers: Periodi c photos of t he chil dren and t heir fami li es are an essential part of the communication proces s between t he children and sponsors. Seva Mandir

regular ly tra ins rural youth photographers in both m anual and digit al photography i n

order to facil itat e t his process.

People’ s Management School (PMS)

The PMS was establ ished i n 1991 to strengt hen knowl edge and learning systems at bot h the organiza tional and com munity l evel, t o progress tow ards Seva Mandir’ s overall

visi on of i ncreasi ng the ow nership of comm uniti es of thei r own deve lopment process. It

also a ims to build and strengt hen relationshi ps with external st akehol ders to i ncrease co-

operati on for development.

Research , Monitoring an d Evaluati on cell

The R ME C ell has m ade a shift dur ing t he present plan aw ay from survey-based

evaluati ons to developing wit hi n the programmes in-built monit or ing and evaluati on

system s – at both out put and e ffect level s. T his int ernali zati on of t he evaluat ion process

helps to st rengthen programme- level reporting st ructures and t o ensure the ownership of

data by the programme st aff. In thi s context, one of the major funct ions t hat the PME C ell

plays is the preparati on of moni toring and eva luati on reports, in Hindi, based on data

collec ted in collaboration with t he various programm es. T his year, t he followi ng evaluati ons w ere carried out:

• St udy on E ffect Indi cators of Health – this incl uded measuri ng awareness on key

health indicat ors, percent age o f w omen reached out by t he T raditional B irt h Att endants, proporti on of hom e deli veries to i nstituti ona l del iveri es, maternal deat hs

and immunization coverage .

• St udy on E ffect Indicators o f Vi llage Institut ions w hich included assessi ng the qualit y

of management of common resources, quality of distr ibuti on of benefi ts betw een

peopl e, no and type o f con fl icts res ol ved by vil lage development commit tees,

partici pati on level s in decision maki ng, use of vi llage fund, quant um of village funds

raised from non Seva Mandir sources and the ra tio of l oans issued (from the vill age

fund) t o recovered

• Study on Effect Indicat ors of Nat ural Res ources Development which incl uded

assessing the coverage of the Van Uthan Sangh, area o f common land being protect ed

and managed by village committees, con fl icts resolved over commons, change in

vege tal cover , producti vity of farm land and non arable lands, change in croppi ng

pa ttern, extent of em ployment genera tion and m anagement of C PRs by vill age

instituti ons.

• St udy on Effect indicat ors of W omen and Child D evelopment Program - whi ch

included ass essing the enhanced capacit ies of the women leaders, access to credit for


70

meeting household needs, increased household i ncome, extent of m alnourishm ent i n Balw adis, retenti on and per form ance o f children from B alw adis in school s.

• St udy on E ffect indica tors of Educat ion which i ncluded measur ing percent age of

children becomi ng literat e, percent age of children from SKs/ R esidential school s

enrolled in schools and thei r retenti on leve ls in school.

• Analyzed and reported dat a on candidates having direct linkage wi th Seva Mandir

and appearing in the Panchayti -raj el ection 2010.

• Acti on Research to underst and the fun cti oni ng of Pan chayats- Objective of t his s tudy is to deepen the understanding of is sues li nked to Panchayat s through bei ng closel y

associated wi th one Panchayat over a period o f tw o years and fol low its functi oni ng

closely - vis a vis - the ir quorum meeti ngs, thei r decisions, their interacti on wit h

citi zens, with bureaucracy and pol itical parties.

• Annual Program Progress R eport (APPR) and PU long term Planning (PULT P) -

Designed by PLAN, data on seven indi cator of Pl an from 300 households in 30

vi llages from a ll five blocks was analyzed.

• Bt. Cotton study - Objective of the study was to find t he present stat us and prepare

advocacy paper t o be us ed for advocacy m eeting under sm all grants proj ects.

• Traffi cking In Person (T IP) - This is a project to build up the capaci ty o f local N GO’ s

and the G ovt. offi c ials by a ser ies o f works hops and tra inings w ith the hel p of five

local NGO’s such as Seva Mandir, Dakshini Raj asthan Majdoor U nion, Al ert, CAM,

Gandhi Manav K alyan Society t o deal with child traffi cking. Several meetings at

di ffe rent l evels were carr ied out in the reporting per iod.

Training Cell Over few decades, trai ning of sta ff and enh ancing their capacity has obtained a

significant position i n t he development sec tor. More recent ly, the scope of trai ning has no

longer been limited to just devel opi ng knowledge and competenci es o f individuals, but

has incorpora ted new dimensions of organizat ional functionality. In fact , this is now

viewed as a crucial e lement i n provi ding a sound basis for modern d ay work and

management. B ased on st a ff’ s needs, the T raining Cell of PMS faci litates t he capacit y buildi ng in the organization through l ocating appropriate trai nings internally and

external ly.

Duri ng this year in form ation of 109 di fferent seminars, workshops, conference, such as

economic freedom, world bank ai ded projects, Genpact N asscom soci al innovati on

honours and var ious ot her a reas were done and 37 employees att ended vari ous trainings.

Accordi ng to per form ance apprai sals and per formance reviews of 2009, various i nternal

trai nings w ere planned out of w hich five i mportant trainings on MS Excel, Photoshop &

web des igning s oftw are, basic computer applica tions, grant proposal writing and Engli sh

speaking w ere conduct ed.


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New initiatives by the traini ng cell included a rural development course for Norwegian University of Li fe-sci ences, a semester cours e for Duke students, a visi t of seni or

pro fes sors from N orway and designing of t raini ng module for Help a Child organizati on

on St rengthening of CB Os for their Partners based at N ortheast and Orissa. V ari ous

additi onal seminars, ext ernal workshops designing and semester courses were conduct ed under learning cent re retreat, foll ow ed by annual camp duri ng thi s tenure. Fi rst learni ng

retreat theme based on Yoga and health was conduct ed i n Oct ober at K aya for three days

attended by around 18 p arti cipants. T rai ning C ell sta rted a seminar ser ies on Gandhi and

Swaraj – ek Khoj.

A social leadership w orkshop w as coordi nated in coordi nation wi th NFI, New Del hi. T he

workshop w as organized during 22nd January – 27th January. CII W omen Exemplar

award and Subramani an Fe llowship were awarded to chosen candidat es during thi s

period.

Social Envi ron ment Cell

The initiatives that come under the ambi t of t he SEC broadly pres ent opport uniti es for the

organisation t o i nt eract with the devel opment sector and t he soci ety at l arge, and act as an

inter face for exper ience shari ng and cross-learni ng am ongs t NGOs in genera l. T he

government and the donor com munity have defined an important role i n t he development

o f N GOs and have been providing subst anti al resources to the sect or. Seva Mandi r i s

commi tted to sharing i ts experiences and extending what support it can offe r to people’ s

organisations and other N GO s. Under the SEC, t wo broad acti viti es are conducted,

namely – Support Cell for NGO s and the Interns hi p Programme.

Fellowships

Seva Mandir has also been supporting vol unteers associat ed with the Rej uvenate Indi a

Movement (RIM), through w hich t hey have been serving as change agents in their local

communities, addressi ng a wi de range o f issues and trying to activate the panchayat.

A fter about 8 y ears o f w orking on t hese lines w it h 4 Samaj Shilpis (as the RIM

volunteers are cal led), in 10 vi llages of Mavl i block, we deci ded to phase out of tha t

arena and also thought of remodelli ng the inte rvention. W e decided to give i t the form of

a Fell owship (for a speci fic per iod o f tim e), to enable a village leader to w ork on a them e

issue of local relevance. For the year 2010-2012 13 fel lows were sel ected from 4 blocks.

A selection com mit tee was constituted for the purpos e o f select ing genuine and deserving

Samaj Shilpies.

The Social environment cell of PMS al so anchored the Vikas Mit ra Fell owshi p

Programme. T he objecti ve of t his programme is to encourage local people to assume

communit y leadership and work on selected t hemes in and a round their vi llage. T his is a

two year fel lowship program. In order to encourage more participation on behalf o f

vill agers, an incentive o f Rs. 25,000 ( in 5 inst all ments) is given to each fel low dur ing t he


72

program. 19 fel lows were meti culously chosen for t his program that were trained and guided by their respective mentors.

Internships

The Internship Program accomm odates vol unteers/ i nt erns from wi thin India and abroad

for periods ranging from t wo m onths t o a year and it allows them to gain an insight int o

development w ork in India through thei r engagement in various rural development

project s. They a re provided space and s uppor t to cont ribut e, l earn and conduct research

studies on var ious issues of development.

Duri ng the repor ting per iod, a total of 181 vol unt eers/ interns have been hosted by t he

program, whi ch had 108 Indi ans and 73 int ernati onal volunt eers. Out of t otal 181, 110

were institutional int erns, among w hich 70 were from Indi an institut es and 40 were from

international i nstit utes.

W e have set up new coll aboration/ rel ationship with the follow ing Indian ins tit utes:

Central uni versity of B ihar – Patna, GLA G roup of Institutions - Mat hura, C.T.A.E. –

Udaipur, D eepshikha C ollege o f T echnical Education - Jaipur, I IT – Mumbai, , Riward

P .G. College - U .P., Swami Sahajanand C oll ege o f Socia l W ork – B havnagar, ISB& M

School of Com munication- Pune, Vishwa B hart i - W est Bengal, T ER I Uni versity –

Del hi, Sanghvi Innovati ve A cademy – Indore. Apart from these, a few ICICI fel lows and

SBI fel lows also became a part of Seva Mandir duri ng this per iod.

In t erms of collaboration wit h i nternat ional institut es, inte rns came from various insti tutes

such as CAMVO L – U. K. America Indi a Foundation – U.S.A., Foundati on for

Sus tainabl e Devel opment – U.S.A., Minnesota Studies in Int ernational D evelopment –

Jaipur, Amherst C oll ege - U.S.A., Developm ent In A ction - U.K., Edinburgh U nivers ity –

U.K., U niversity of I llini ous – Chicago, Hoyskol en In Sor - T rondelag – Norw ay, School

o f Educati on Linnaeus University – Sweden, et c.

Som e new initiatives were taken in this period for the benefit of t he volunteers, like Ci ne

Chaupal and W orl d T our from home.

Rafe Bullick Memorial Fund

The Rafe B ulli ck Memor ial Fund (RBMF) has been set up in m emory o f R afe B ulli ck, a

form er volunt eer w ith Seva Mandir who t ragically l ost hi s life in a land mi ne explosi on

while on a field tri p in Sudan with Save the Chil dren. T he fund, which has been institut ed

by his famil y, has the objective of k eeping alive hi s mem ory so t hat R afe continues t o

live among the people whom he loved and served with unfai ling passion. T he Rafe Memori al Fund supports activities such as em pow eri ng ordi nary c iti zens t hrough

supporti ng village l ibraries, providing scholarships t o depr ived yet capable st udents,

providing correct ive t herapy for chil dren with special needs, supporti ng indivi duals wit h


73

social leadership abilities and organizi ng support groups where people can discuss their problems and devise sol utions.

In order to cont inue the spirit of R afe B ulli ck and some of hi s previous activities Seva

Mandir and the Rafe Bullick Memori al Foundat ion prepared a col laboration program for Seva Mandir’ s volunteers. T he idea w as t o engage the children in a meaningful w ay by

interacti ng with t he children on a w eekly b asi s t hrough various acti vities and games. T he

volunteer program for the deaf and bli nd rest arted in Septem ber 2010 after this summer

vacati ons. A ft er observat ion visit we thought of m any diffe rent activi ties w hi ch could be

useful and possible for t he kids. A mont hly schedule was made whi ch we hung up at

notice board for t he perusal o f all. W e also decided t o do t he visi ts on a fix ed day, w hi ch

is Sat urday and by t urn, one w eek to the d eaf children and the n ext week t o the bl ind

school.

Children’s Corner

Chi lren’s corners are spaces for children l iving i n slum s whi ch offer shel ter, nutri tion,

education, recreat ion and expos ure to new skil ls to t hem. T wo chil dren’s corners

continued to be run i n slum areas o f Udai pur, are a lso provi ding t he attending children an

oppor tunit y to work together on t he vari ous acti viti es undert aken there. T he program has

now been running for last tw o years as pil ot program. It was felt that now t he program

should be included in t he mai n st ream programs of Seva Mandir so that t he communi ties

can be involved t hrough ot her ongoing program s for di ffe rent ben eficiar ies incl uding

children. A s t he program is i mplemented i n the urban sl ums, the urban bl ock was alw ays

involved i n t he act ivities and processes. Now the w hole program has been handed over to

the urban block for implementation.

The period experienced a hol isti c im provement, w here on one hand children parti cipati on

has rem ained st able and comm unity l evel partici pation has increased. T he rel ationshi p

has m atured in t his time where the components of confidence and cohes ion are re flected.

This was apparent from the fact t ha t parent s took init iat ive to send t heir children t o

literacy camps and t hey tried t o parti cipat e in t he Oasis workshop. Chi ldren’s att racti on

continues t o be mai nt ained t hrough creati ve games and m ovi es. Chil dren also keenl y

parti cipated in t he art workshop with their fr iends from Shikshant ar. They are s til l bei ng

monit ored on thei r bad habit s of playing for money and engaging in unheal thy eati ng

habits. W ith the cont inuous i nt eractions wit h the community regarding t he opportuni ty of

sending thei r children to school the interest for the s ame has i ncreased. Fi ve children have been able t o pass the first st andard and have been enrol led i n the second grade. T he

irregular ones have s hown i nteres t i n going from the new session.

Chi ldren have become m ore partici pa tory, more interacti ve and more aware t han before .

Thei r continuous demands for more act ivities and their involvem ent in the s ame re flec t

the changes coming gradual ly. Children com ing to t he corner regular ly have al so been

exposed to more opportunities of learning, parti cipating and shar ing. Exposure conti nues


74

in t he form o f picni c, w orkshop and vol unteers. A wareness regarding hea lth and hygiene has somewhere started showing some si gns of im provement i n children. Communit y

parti cipati on and int eracti on continues through frequent fol low ups (survey, evaluati on

process and awareness.)

Pu blications and Library

Other inte rventi ons of the PMS incl uded bringing out the organi zation’s publications.

Based on the design feedback from W omen on W ings, Hol land, the publicat ions brought

out duri ng the year were consist ent i n buil ding a vi sual brand identi ty of Seva Mandir.

The significant publicat ions of the year inc luded a booklet o f artic les related to Natural

Resources entitled “ Making t he Herd Survive”, annual report o f Sadhna , Seva Mandir

newsl etters and greeti ng cards.

The Library and D ocum entati on Cent re is managed by the PMS and is a lso housed in t he

PMS unit. T his year 161 new mem bers w ere regist ered. T he average daily attendance of

library w as 110.

Conclusion

Last year had been very busy for PMS t eam. Al l kinds of act ivities and event s were

wel comed si nce t he team w as t rying to exper iment with various things. N ow it seems that

PMS is at a st age w hen it can prioriti ze t he work based on the learni ngs of previous years.

Som e engagement s, like organizi ng induct ion for n ew empl oyees, coul d not be t aken due

to ot her engagement s. These wi ll be taken back up in the following year . PMS will al so

focus on improvement of t he process of data collection and compil ation.


75

Urban Block

Seva Mandir has been working in the urban sl um areas o f U daipur c ity s ince 2001. T hos e

livi ng in t he urban slums are predominant ly mi grants from Udaipur's rural hi nterl ands

and further a fiel d. Many of the inhabitant s are involved in informal labour work,

typically earning l ow incomes and facing m any hardships. Furt hermore, t here i s a lack of

access t o qualit y basic services and facil ities – including safe drinking w ater, a cl ean environment, health care and quality education - that are necessary for peopl e to li ve

wel l. A survey done for 7th

C omprehensive Planning i n 3 urban settlement s show ed that

64% o f the houses were pakka, and 76% had electr icit y, but only 30% of the househol ds

had dri nki ng water faci lit y. A s the burden of the m any problem s fac ing slum dw ellers are

o ften borne most heavil y by women and chi ldren, Seva Mandi r's interventions focus

primaril y on t hese sections of the population.

Women’s Groups and S HGs

In order t o empower w omen to address their concerns, Seva Mandir added 14 new

women SHGs t o the cit y, maki ng the tot al 80. Out of these , 10-15 were readied for

form alizat ion in t he last year. A total of 1,588 w omen are m embers of these groups.

The SH Gs, in additi on to hel ping the women s ave, al so provide them a forum to com e

together and dis cuss t heir problems. 27 accountants have been engaged by the w omen t o

keep the SHG records. Last year, account ants’ meeti ngs were organized every month.

Duri ng the annual audits of all 80 SHGs done by 3 wom en audit ors, balance amounts of only 6 members w ere found to be less. Many wom en took loans from SHG s thi s year,

mainl y for debt clearances, house constructi ons and i ncome generation activiti es.

As shared in the sec tion on t he W omen’s Empow erment Programm e, t he SHGs o f the

urban block also benefitt ed from t he new monit or ing processes and s ystem s put in place

with support from PR ADAN.

In addit ion to t his, women have been ra ising a var iety o f local i ssues, ranging from

domesti c viol ence to the need for regular wat er suppl y, and also taking action to addres s

them. In cases o f seri ous domesti c abuse, the concerned women are l inked up w ith t he Shor t St ay Home for w om en, housed in Seva Mandir’ s urban block office.

Other Initiati ves A two-day training was organized in June’ 10 for discus sing gender issues among women.

32 girl s and wom en parti cipat ed, and i nt eract ed on issues li ke eve-teasing and wom en

health.


76

Seva Mandir has been w orking wit h the Jeevan Madhur Micro Insurance Programme by govt. si nce 2008. In the Urban bl ock, 12 peopl e recei ved 515 polic ies and a total

commi ssion amount of R s. 50,722 w as distributed under t he program me.

Education programme

At present, t here a re 11 B al Samuhs, reaching out to a t otal of 220 children, operating i n the city slums. T heir main objective is to he lp st udents from disadvantaged households i n

completing t heir hom ework and im proving t heir standard of educat ion so that they don’t

drop out because of l aggi ng behind. T he Bal Samuhs are run for 2 hours ev ery day in t he

evening by a vol unt eer. Parents are charged a monthl y fee of Rs. 5-10 per child. Every

Saturday, the chil dren are t aught for one hour and the remaining time used for ot her

creat ive act ivit ies like mehendi (heena) cl asses, embroidery, etc. Furthermore, a mobil e

library servi ce is also runni ng in t his area with support from Vidya B hawan. Once i n

three months, a parent- teacher meet ing is organized at each B al Sam uh. T his year, a total

fee o f Rs. 10,980 was coll ected and deposit ed i n t he res pective neighbourhood

development fund and wi ll be used for the children's benefit.

In the youth resource cent re i n Chit rakut Nagar area, t he youth are t aking up vari ous

acti viti es as per t heir interest and need. Activities to enhance s olidarity among the yout h

and community incl uded m onthly cl eaning o f a communit y park, and par tici pation i n

gram sabhas. A tw o-day cr icket tournament w as organi zed in June’10. Other

developmenta l w ork, like campai gn for repai r o f street lights, road repai r and covering o f

drains w ere a lso taken up by t he yout h. Several trainings, li ke those on film making,

career options and gender were also held for the benefit of yout h.

Balwadis

S ince m any households in U daipur’ s urban slum areas face di ffi cult economi c conditions,

it is quite comm on for both parents to be involved in some kind of l abour w ork. In such a

context, it i s ess ential to ensure a sa fe and s timul ating environment for t heir children. T o

this end, Seva Mandir operat es 4 day-care centres i n selec ted sl um areas for children aged

1 to 5 years. 186 children att ended these Bal wadis thi s year and cont ributed a t otal fee o f

Rs. 8, 620.

Formation of Moh alla Groups

An old struggl e in t he city has been getting peopl e t o com e together and t ake

responsibi lity for t he int erventi ons being held in thei r a rea and more broadly of t he is sues

a ffecting t hem. Getting t he participation of men has been parti cularl y challenging. Y et,

the team conti nued t o persevere by persuadi ng people and event uall y 8 mohalla

(neighbourhood) development committees were formed. 7 quart erly meetings were


77

organized in each quarter thi s year , at tended by upto 224 peopl e. R e-elections took place in 7 of the groups.

Sh ort Stay Home for Women

The Short S tay H ome for W omen and G irl s (known as SAMB AL) i s a C entral Social

W elfare B oard funded projec t presently be ing run by Seva Mandi r i n Udaipur. W omen i n

urban areas o ften face great diffi cult ies as a result of various forms of abuse. Somet imes the situation becomes so severe that the w omen need a sa fe and secure place t o stay t o

recupera te and t o decide how to move forward. SAMB AL aims to provide such a s pace

to w omen and girls i n need for a period ranging from s ix mont hs to three years. C hildren

accompanying t heir mother or born in SA MBA L, are permi tted to stay t here. SAMBA L

also ai ms to build wom en’s aw areness about their econom ic, social and l egal ri ghts.

Other services provided inc lude: cas ework and counsel ing services, m edical care and

psychiatric t reatment, occupati onal t herapy, skil l devel opm ent training and rehabilitati on

services and educat ional, vocational and recreati ona l acti viti es. Foll ow up visit s by

counselors are a lso car ried out to ensure t he well-bei ng and safety o f those women w ho

have left SA MBAL.

Duri ng t he year, a tot al of 69 new w omen and 28 chil dren were given shelter in

SAMBA L. There were 17 women who w ere regist ered l ast year and conti nued to s tay on.

O f this total 67 w om en were rehabi lit ated with their fam ili es or helped sta rt their lives

a fresh by finding t hem a job.

Duri ng their st ay, a variet y of activities are carri ed out with the w omen t o address their

physical and mental healt h needs and also to provide them wit h a source of

entert ainment. The w omen are taken on various excursions to si tes around Udaipur, are

shown fil ms and celebrate various fest ivals and cultural events.

CHILDLINE

CH ILDLINE w as est ablished as a collaborative i nitiati ve o f the G overnment o f India’ s

Ministry for W oman and Chil d Devel opment and the CH ILDLINE Foundation, Mumbai.

CH ILDLINE is India’s fi rst 24-hour, free, emergency phone servi ce for chil dren from 0-

18 years in need o f aid and assi stance and can be contac ted by dial ling 1098 t oll- free . Seva Mandir operates CHILD LINE U daipur.

This year , a tota l of 636 chi ldren benefit ted t hrough this. Some of the children who com e

to CHILD LINE need a l ot o f medi cal care. T his year 149 chi ldren were provided medical

care t hrough the CH ILDLIN E. In order to make C HILDLIN E more accessible t o all

children a variet y of outreach and aw aren ess act ivities are conduct ed. Key ac tivi ties

include organiz ing an open plat form in each of the various slum areas t o share

informati on about CHILDLIN E and give the local communit ies t he opportunity to ask


78

questions, share concerns and identify chi ldren’s probl ems and pos sible solutions. Chi ldren are als o invited to speak up, reci te poem s and si ng songs. Thes e acti viti es hel p

to establi sh a relat ionship of t rust bet ween the children and CH ILDLINE, increasing t he

likelihood that t hey wi ll make us e of the se rvice, if necessary, in the future . T his year, a

total of 11 such events were organized.

Other outreach acti viti es have included se tti ng up informat ion diss emination booths and

programm es in crowded areas of t he city like temples, hospitals, and bus stands. Li ke

previous years, stalls were put up dur ing loca l festival s such as t he Hari yali fes tival and

Deepaw ali-Dashera festival.

Bui lding on the w ork with CHILD LINE, Seva Mandir has support ed the formation of 7

Bal (C hild) Panchayats i n sel ected sl um areas for chil dren i n the age group o f 10 t o 18

years. T he purpose of thes e forums is to give voice t o the children and t o help them

develop t heir confi dence and leadership skills.

Conclusion

A big chal lenge of t he urban programme has been t he form ation of Neighbourhood Devel opm ent Committ ees. T his year, they have made some headw ay tow ards it and and

in the com ing year, plan to build on it furt her. T he other i nterventions of t he urban

programm e continued to provide help t o w omen and children in dist ress.


79

Kumbhalgarh

In 2001, Seva Mandir st arted w orking i n 67 vill ages of Kumbhalgarh block under t he

W orld B ank’s Distri ct Poverty Initiatives Programme (DPIP). DPIP aim ed to strengt hen

local li velihoods by forming Common Interest Groups and providing them with access to

funds t o take up various income generati on or livelihood-enhancing activi ties. T he DPIP

came to an end in December’07. Post DPIP, Seva Mandir has been engaged in these 67 vill ages of K umbhalagarh t hrough differ ent interventions t hat woul d he lp strengt hen

communit y governance in these a reas. T he fol lowi ng sections give a br ief progress repor t

across the various sectoral i nterventions carried across the villages of K umbalgarh block.

Village Institutions

This year, 8 new G VCs were started, m aking the tot al number of fun cti ona l G VC s 18. 8

workshops were done in 8 vil lages to emphasi ze the import ance and educat e t he

parti cipants about vi llage level inst itut ions. T he tot al m embershi p in t hese 18 G VC s i s

1047. T he t otal amount in GVKs this year end was R s. 334,229.

Along with the regular monthl y meeti ngs, village level cam paigns were organized to

orient the members on t he norms, government programs, social security schemes etc.

These e fforts have made com munity members more aware o f the government program s and t hey have gained the con fidence to raise is sues relat ed to fun ctioni ng of the

panchayats, government func tionari es.

Lan d Based Interventions

W ork wit h 1, 125 farmers from tot al 14 vi llages w as taken up under t he N atural

Resources D evelopment Unit, which i s described as fol lows:

Aff orestati on

Private waste land development : Land in this area is degraded and there is not m uch

vegetati on cover. In addition, wild bl ue bucks are a huge nui sance. T hey j ump over 4ft.

high boundary w alls and destroy the crops and other vegetati on. Because o f this m any farmers are quitting agri cult ure. Thus i n many villages like, Kheda, Jardaya, T hor ia ki

bhagal and Manawat o ka Guda p eople have come up w ith propos als for development and

protect ion of privat e w aste land, pasture land and culti vable land. B oundary w all

construction on private and com mon past urelands of total 40 ha was in progress last year.

4 new proposal s were received last year, for a total of 67 ha of land. This work i s

expected t o benefit 138 households.


80

Under the Make My T ri p funds, plant ation of 11,085 sapli ngs was done on total 41.79 ha (12 sit es) w hich when com pleted w ill benefit 367 households. Survi val ra te o f t hese

plants was approx. 75%, with 8,350 survi ving. 8,020 saplings were obtained from t he tw o

annual nurser ies. Additional 3,065 saplings w ere bought from the forest depart ment.

Fur ther MMT plantation of 9,000 plant s will be done on 40 h a in the n ext year , benefi tting 163 households.

Nurseri es: Currently there are t wo nurs eries running, one annual of 20, 000 saplings and

other rhizome of 10,000 sapl ings.

Agricul ture

Last year, 1,125 farmers became a part o f agricult ure int erventi ons of Seva Mandir.

Following is t he descri pti on of the var ious activities undert aken.

Horti culture: Pl antati on of 2,443 fruit trees l ike, lemon, sapot a, mango, guava and aml a

was taken up by 240 farmers. Including re-pl antati on, total 3, 173 sapli ngs w ere pl anted.

Crop product ion: V ari ous tra inings were held for t he farmers about bett er techniques of

crop product ion, l ike sowing t echniques and common diseases and t he ir prevention. 54

farmers participated in Kharif c rop trainings and 84 i n R abi c rop t raini ng.

Seed Banks: T he tot al number of operat ional seed banks is 25. Last year, 3,234 kg s eeds

were dist ribut ed and 3, 822 kg against the expected 4,851 kg was returned. A total o f 103

farmers took seeds from the banks. The vill age development commit tees have taken t he

responsibi lity of coll ection, grading, cleani ng, storage and dist ribution of the seed. Each

commi ttee has been equipped w ith drums and w eighing scales to m anage the seed banks .

Setti ng up seed banks i n the vill ages will enabl e comm uniti es t o secure access to seeds at

minimal economic cost and shall encourage t hem to continue wit h thei r best practice of

storing seeds, ensur ing t he loca l availabilit y of qualit y seeds.

Vermi – Com posting: Ti ll now, 51 vermi-composts have been constructed i n

Kumbhalgarh. Out of t hese, worms were added to 35 l ast year. A trai ning w as organi zed

attended by 34 farmers in w hi ch met hodol ogies and benefit s o f vermi-composti ng were

demonstrated.

Cat tle C amps: 2 catt le camps w ere organized l ast year, one i n June and other i n

Decem ber-January. Participation saw a significant increase from 138 farmers in June t o

287 in Decem ber.

Clean drinking water


81

2 tank syst ems were i nstal led i n Kharcha and Suj a ka Leva villages. Households have been using chlorinated w ater through the tanks, which has instigated ot her villages t o

understand the i mportance o f such syst ems. T hese t anks syst ems are benefit ting a tot al of

65 hous ehol ds currently. Under t he Arghyam project, a survey was al so done for the

wat er qua lit y of all t he 43 wells of G awar and Majera vill ages. T hese tests were accompanied by diss eminat ion of in formati on on i mportance o f clean dr inking w ater and

sanitation. Al ongside, work of well deepening w as done i n Chandana village. A tot al of

147 households are i nvolved i n the Arghyam proj ect for clean dr inking w ater.

Village Committee o f Gaw ar and Majhera vi llages have sent proposals for constructi on

o f 2 eco-san toilets in each village foll owing t he improvement in underst anding of t he

importance of sani tati on.

Mah atma Gandhi Nation al Rural Employment Gu arantee Act

(MGNREGA)

MGNREGA was initiated i n K um bhalgarh in A pril 08. Initially st aff mem bers s upport ed

the com munit y in getting j ob cards, then in applyi ng for works, opening bank account s

and also helping in getting the del ayed payment s. T his experi ence has he lped the staff to

gain deeper underst anding of the com pl exities in i mplem entation of the t asks under

MGNREGA.

In t he past year, proposa ls for a variety of w orks, like ground l eveling, construction of

check dams and indi vidual works were prepared by the Gram Sabhas of vi llages Gaw ar,

Antaliya, Manavat on ka G uda, Reeched and Sevantri and w ere forw arded.

Savings & Credit Activity

S tandardization o f SHG norms, audi t of SHG s, quali tat ive monit oring, streamlini ng

Management Informati on System (MIS), capaci ty buil ding of st a ff, and ot her i niti atives

were undertaken t o strengthen exi sti ng s avings and credi t acti vit ies. Furthermore, t he

SHGs t ook a step tow ards sel f- reliance by contr ibuting for audit fees and books of

accounts.

At present there are 93 Sel f Help Groups (SHGs), an increase o f 13 since last year, that

are i nvol ved in savings and c redit activi ties. O ut o f t hese, 79 SHG s are of women,

comprising 1, 141 wom en, 5 are mixed and 9 a re of men, compr ising 86 men.

St atus of SHGs (March ’10)

Particulars Details

No. of SH Gs 93

Members 1296


82

Savings (Rs. ) 904, 075

Cash at bank (R s.) 248, 145

The cash a t bank is very high, which re flect s that mem bers a re st ill not using their funds ,

though there i s ampl e demand for credit . O ne o f the reasons for non-usage o f SH G funds

is l ack of trust among members due to fear of non-repayment . T he SH Gs feel that

keeping money in t he bank will keep t heir money safe. T hi s issue will be addressed

through regular monitoring of SHG s and moti va ting members to fol low group values and

norms.

As part of the overall Seva Mandir t eam, responsible for the w ork on SH Gs, staff

members from K umbhalgarh parti cipated in s eries of meeti ngs, t rai ni ngs, expos ure visit s

and vision building works hop. T his hel ped improve their underst anding on SHG

concepts, norms, m onitoring i ndicators, audit, basic accounti ng and Mcfinanci er

(so ftware for SHG program ).

Conclusion

Village group mem bers, with support of Seva Mandir, have s how n keen interest i n taki ng

up vari ous long term and shor t term acti vities for land d evel opm ent. Not only through t he

donor funds but a lso through MGNR EGA, now that Seva Mandir has become a PIA.

This i s going to be an up hill t ask as preparations w ill have to be m ade soon at different

levels. On one hand preparing technical proposals and the other ensuri ng peoples presence and part icipat ion i n the Gram Sabha and then gett ing the proposal sanct ioned at

the bl ock and dist rict level. T his will require networki ng and li aisi ng with government

o ffi cials.

W ith women’s groups, besi des strengtheni ng the savings and credit activity the fo cus w ill

be on creat ing awareness on government programs, their functi oning and on accessi ng

these services and schemes.


83

Delwara- Governance in Peri-Urban Settlements

Del wara vill age is a part of D elwara panchayat of R ajsam and district. Almost the size of

a small town, it is the hub of l ocal comm erce and has a bust ling m arketpl ace. It lies 30

km nort h-east of Udaipur city and is wel l connected to t he road networks because o f it s

locati on. It has a popul ati on of about 500 fami lies.

Nagri k Vi kas Manch (Citizens Development Forum), i nitiated by Seva Mandir and the

people o f D elwara, is functioni ng here for the past 7 years. It is worki ng in fi ve key areas

o f W at er and Sanitation, Her itage , Educati on, Li ve lihood and Youth Devel opment.

W ork i n Delwara ai ms at enhancing know ledge and understandi ng of problem s

associat ed with peri-urban settlem ents and prepari ng the communit y of this settlem ent t o

work t owards fi ndi ng soluti ons to these problems. Undoubtedly, there have been good

results a round it. T hi s w hol e process w as cont inued i n thi s year as well and special effort s

were put into strengt hening and infusing more responsi bility to Nagrik Vi kas Manch.

Stren gthenin g Community Governance

The foll owing acti viti es w ere conduct ed for st rengthening communit y governance, a core

focus area i n Delwara:

1. At Manch level wit h executive committ ee (karyakari ni) and program committees: A

total of 11 executive com mittee m eeti ngs with 217 par tici pants, and 9 genera l body

meetings with 203 parti cipant s w ere organized i n this duration.

2. At Mohalla (hamlet ) level wi th ci tiz ens and w ard panch: In thi s duration, there were

88 mohalla meet ings in whi ch 1, 677 participants were present. The reas on for

relat ively lesser number of meetings w as the unavailabilit y of a woman communit y

worker, due to her accident.

3. At Panchayat level on Gram Sabha, Panchayat Quorom etc. : In the reporting peri od

a total of 9 quorum m eetings and 5 gram sabhas w ere observed. 2 camps were al so

organized by village panchayat, one in Prashashan G aon ki O ar (adm inist rati on

reaching vi llage) and a foll ow -up cam p. T hese camps w ere a ttended by district level

offi c ials and elect ed represent atives, leaders and comm on citi zens. Many issues

relat ed t o the citizens ( regarding H ealth, BPL etc. ) were sorted out. Dur ing thi s

reporti ng period there was a focus on coordi nating and strengthening our rel ationshi p

wit h panchayat.

4. At various Program C ommittees' level: T he t hree committees whi ch are acti ve are :


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a. Com mit tee for adm inist rati on and financial management : A tot al of 9 meetings of this committee wit h 117 par tici pants were held in t his reporting peri od.

b. Com mit tee for c leaning works: 11 meetings of cl eaning committee with 197

parti cipant s were observed during this repor ting period.

c. Com mit tee for cons tructi on works: Currently there is a need o f re- formation o f thi s commi tt ee as bei ng one of the most important committees, it needs to have a more

regular ized out look tow ards t he work. R est of t he tw o committ ees, Comm ittee for

Education and Health Committ ee w ere formed by the end of the year.

5. At Government Department level: NV M personnel consult various governmental

department s for t he solut ion of various issues, l ike dr inking w ater system at hospit al,

cooki ng gas supply system, etc. Last year, many visits w ere m ade by offi cial s li ke

Dist ric t C ommi ssioner, C hief Program O ffi cer , etc . t o observe w ork done by N VM.

During thes e vi sit s m any suggestions and propos als were made by them, li ke

extending such programs to other settlement s of Rajasmand district, devel oping Indra

Kund as a herit age sit e and D elwara as a herit age tow n. Some o f the proposals a re

under seri ous consi derati on and oral assurance has been provi ded by the offic ials.

Trainings

Differ ent trainings were organized in thi s peri od, revol ving around improving the skill s

o f mem bers of m anch karyak arini (executive council), program committees, mohall a

commi ttees, l ocal panchayat etc. and making them aware of their roles and

responsibi lities. In this duration, three types of t rainings were organized, Mohalla G roup

Training, Pipl antri visit by Panchayat and Manch and Program Com mit tee T raining.

Women in Governance

Mahila Jagriti Manch (Women's Awakeni ng Forum): T his forum w as established t o

encourage w omen to raise t heir problems and work t owards solving t hem. Duri ng thi s

report ing period, thi s forum was s uccess ful in solvi ng two fami ly problems involvi ng

women and in establi shing di alogue with dist rict officia ls around i ndiffe rent gas supply.

They are also i n cons tant dialogue with panchayat and adm inist rati on about women-

centri c i ssues in NREGA (like faci lities at work sit e, wages etc. ).

Women's Day Celebration Program : The w hole month of March i s celebrat ed i n

Del wara as t he W omen month. One special meeting for organizing this event was he ld at

NV M office in w hich t he detailed planning of thi s event was done by women of D elwara

under the banner of Mahila Jagrit i Manch and t he event was a big succes s.

Women's SHGs: T here are 5 women SHGs which are continuously worki ng in Delwara,

covering a round 88 w omen m embers.


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Water Water-Tank const ruction: NV M and m ohalla committ ee -Bhoiw ara together construct ed

a w ater- tank o f 8, 000 lit re capac ity. A t otal of R s. 2, 200 was collect ed as cont ributi on

from thi s mohalla.

Deepening of Palera pond and renovati on of palera feeder canal: A ft er panch ayat’s

work on the pond under N REGA, t he leakage from i t had worsened. A dial ogue with t he

Government engineer was init iat ed, and as a result, the s ituation has i mproved and t he

work is complete aft er approxi mately Rs. 9 l akhs expenditure. Main feeder canal and 2

more canals’ repai r w ork w as done by panchayat under the NREGA program.

Repair work of Wat er-Tank: T he cit izens residi ng near the B us Stand, and the mohalla

commi ttee approached t he NVM t o repair a water tank construct ed approx. 15 years ago

which was causing leakage problems. T he t ank was repaired and the water-logged a rea

was cleaned by us.

Water Testing Work: W ater testing of var ious dri nking water sources w as conducted by

the NVM in which the w ater w as tested on pre-set 11 parameters. Al l the t hree t ests were

done, pre-monsoon, during m onsoon and post monsoon. In the basic findings i t was

found t hat t he water qualit y is good but some of the pur i fi cation measures were proposed.

W ork on a detailed ana lyti cal report is still under process.

Shram Daan: V olunteered labor by the citizens at Indra-K und, B ai sa ki bawadi and

Khari bawar i was done pre-monsoon i n order to ens ure clean dr inking w ater at thes e

sources. T he basi c purpose o f organizing such an event w as t o make the l ocal communit y

responsibl e and aware towards t heir water -sources and her itage. T he volunt aril y cleani ng o f Indra Kund w as done under the l eadership of Devi garh hotel staff wit h a tot al of 88

people. 1 trolley of debri s and w aste was removed. Bai sa ki bawadi was cleaned under

the l eadership of women o f Mahil a Jagriti Manch (Wom en's Forum) in w hich 50 peopl e

parti cipated.

Sanitation

In Delwara, s anitation is an im portant issue and has been given priority from the very beginning. Out o f targe ted 50 t oilet s, 49 toilets were const ructed last year. 140 t oilet s are

current ly required by the people, 90 of which w ill be const ructed by t he help of Pl an

India and Seva Mandir 's support whil e support for t he rest still needed. Const ructi on of a

Decent rali zed-W astewater T reatment Pl ant star ted duri ng t his reporti ng peri od, one of the

fi rst in peri-urban settlem ents.

Cleaning Program


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Cl eaning Program for street s and nei ghborhood: At present a t otal number of 13 Arogya Mitras and one super-visor are w orking for ens ur ing cleanl iness on streets,

mohall as and drains. Included i n this is a cycle -rickshaw pull er w ho drives the A rogya

Rat h for col lecti ng garbage from every house-hold and t hen dropping it a t the Soli d

W aste Managem ent Sit e. T hough there a re some cha llenges related t o the cl eanlines s program, like insuffi cient number of Arogya Mitras, this system i s managed well by t he

manch em pl oyees, manch karyakarini and cleaning committ ee members. As a result, t he

system is being praised not onl y at the local citizen's leve l but als o at block, dist rict, stat e

and even at count ry l evel. This cl eaning system is tot ally a par tici pation based program i n

which a fixed amount of Rs. 10 per m onth i s taken from every househol d and deposit ed

in their respecti ve mohalla account s. At present a total of approximat ely 65% of

households par tici pate in this system, whil e di alogue w ith the rest are underway.

Repairing the Drains: Learning through the experiences i n di ffi cult ies in cleaning

processes, some drai ns were repaired in v ari ous localities. Mainl y drains at Y adav

mohall a, T rim ukhi bawadi, Naya Bazar, Muslim B asti, Upalla Pada and at all t he

crossroads o f village were covered and adding to t hese, two "pashu pyau" and two hand-

pumps w ere repaired as well.

Solid Waste Management

Solid W aste Managem ent i s one o f the bi ggest problems of the set tlem ent and the basi c

challenge for tackl ing t his is the participati on of local citizens.

Solid Was te Management Site: Last year, a one room water tank w as const ructed a t t he

sit e whi ch was connected t o the Bheel Basti water-t ank for regular wat er supply. Along

with this, an EM (Efficient Mi cro-organism) soluti on com position based composti ng system was init iat ed for prep aring manures. This however, eventual ly failed. Presentl y

we are pl anning for t he composting system based on vermi -composting.

Waste Segregation: Presently, a new experim ental work was initiated in Y adav m ohal la,

to get the w aste segregated at house-hol d level. In thi s pilot, every household was

supplied w it h two bi ns of di f ferent colors , red for dry and green for wet wast e. T he

collec ted was te is then emptied in t he respect ive chambers of t he Arogya R ath. T hi s

system will be especi ally us eful for composting. T hi s process is also based on people's

parti cipatory met hods in which Rs. 30 per household is the cont ributi on money collect ed

every m ont h. The results at Yadav mohalla have been qui te encouragi ng and by the end o f t hi s reporting peri od, sanct ions for exp ansion o f wast e-segregat ion process to three

more mohall as namely N aya B azar, Mandawat C how k and Brahm pur i w ere recei ved and

planning for these was done.

Exposure V isit: A n exposure visit to Jhadol on V ermi -compost ing was organized for

Arogya Mitra and NVM employees. T he m ain motive behind t his visi t w as to underst and

the process o f vermi-composting and to discus s the possibilities of replica ting this


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process at Delw ara. T his visit i niti ated conversati ons among workers around t his and was very hel pful. T his work will be soon initiated.

Team building tour with Arogya Mitras: A tour t o the famous Ubeshwar Mahadev

templ e in Udaipur dist rict w as organi zed with A rogya Mitras and Manch em pl oyees for re freshment and to discuss topi cs like responsibilit y, team-work, mutual understanding.

Pasture Land

Kat iya Mangri: A pasture land w as developed on Katiya Mangr i by NV M and Seva

Mandir where repair o f boundary w all and plantat ion was done. Presently t he Mohall a

commi ttee- B heel Bast i has taken t he responsi bility to mai ntai n it. The l ocal communit y

has done t he repai r o f total boundary wall volunt arily and has appoi nted one care-t aker

for the s ame w hose salary is given by the m ohalla account.

Sheet la Mat a: T he citizens of D elw ara dem anded for a sep arat e pasture land near local

Sheetla Mata templ e on a hill-top. Panchayat has als o expressed its desi re t o support thi s

proposal. Engineering Unit-Seva Mandi r has also done observations on t his and trenches

and pit s w ere dug. T he pl antati on w ork is st ill t o be done.

Heritage

This settlement inherits many famous jain templ es, step wells and monuments. Si nce past

3-4 years we have been w orking towards rest oring this town's herit age glory by worki ng

on renovati on and beauti fication o f v arious sites. D uring this reporti ng period, work on Indra K und and Kasheshw ar Mahadev temple w as done whil e the remaini ng w ork is

expected t o finish by next year.

Indra Kund renovation w ork: Re-establishm ent of rehat ( the tradi tional wat er li ft ing

struct ure) costi ng around Rs. 38,000, was done at Indra Kund. T his w as re-est ablis hed by

NV M to restore the herit age and to promote the practica l operational knowledge around

the traditional wat er lifting process in step w ell s. A design and draft for a total renovati on

o f t hi s step well w as prepared wit h the help of exper ts provi ded by NFI ( the N ational

Foundat ion of India) and was shared w ith t he rural development minister, district

collec tor, divisional com missioner and ot her offici als. An oral assurance was gi ven by them to take up this work, budget ed at around Rs. 10 l akh.

Youth Programs at Urja Ghar, Delwara

It has been four years s ince U rja Ghar , N VM start ed w orking with the yout h of Del wara .

In thi s durat ion, U rj a Ghar was i nvolved in many youth development program s whi ch

concentrat ed on skill buil ding of youth.


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Youth Meeti ngs: In this report ing per iod 20 m eeti ngs were hel d wi th youth at U rj a G har in w hich 300 yout hs part ici pated. These meet ings included t he Yuva Panchayat meeting,

Video U nit meeting, meeti ng for form ing new SHGs etc. In t hese meeti ngs yout h

discussed various i ssues and probl ems of the village and tried to explore the pot ential

soluti ons. T hrough t hese m eeti ngs, t he participation of youth i n Panchayat w as found to increase. Youth parti cipated in all the meetings of N VM wit h enthusi asm and

responsibi lity. T hey al so par ticipated with equal enthusiasm i n panchayat quoram

meeti ngs and got sanct ions for a playground work which i s going to be st arted as a

NR EGA project soon.

Youth Trai nings and Workshops: V arious trainings and workshops w ere organized for

the benefit o f the youth, like gender tra ining, Sel f H elp G roup (S.H.G.) skill -building

trai ning, health trai ning, dialogue w ith bank manager, per forming ar ts w orkshop, s cript

writing works hop and liveli hood tra ining.

Vi deo Unit : T he youth associated with U rj a Ghar formed a community video unit. This

unit has produced documentary m ovies around the issues of water , probl ems with youth,

struggl e, soci al discr imi nati on, education et c. till date. In t his repor ting peri od t hey

produced tw o m ovies, one on "Helpless peopl e" and the other on "Performing Art s".

"Aaghaz", cultural performance eveni ng: Aaghaz per formance ev ening w as organi zed

by Ur ja Ghar, on 27th October '2010 a t Indra K und. T his program showcased various art s

and talents the parti cipants learnt during t he "Performi ng Arts Workshop".

Publi cations: T wo editions each of ”Apni Pat rika" and " Apna Josh" were published.

Engli sh Spoken Classes: Delhi based American Embassy sponsored English Acces s

Program is organizi ng English cl asses for chil dren of Delw ara. Presently there are 18

children who are coming to t he cl ass regul arl y.

Library and Reading Room: A tot al of 540 books were issues t o 825 readers i n this

period.

Youth S.H. G. s: There are two yout h SHGs w hich are cur rently fun cti ona l i n Delwara. In

each group there are 18-20 youths associat ed.

Conclusion

This reporting per iod saw many achievem ents and challenges, present ing us an insight

into our work and the scope of vari ous opportunities. Budget availability, coordinati on

among st ake-holders and part ies for continuous support t o vari ous program s, communit y

parti cipati on and management of corpus and NV M team are some of the challenges and

work areas for the program.


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Resource Mobilization Unit The resource mobilizat ion unit of Seva Mandir was s et up in 2007 to explore new

avenues o f funding- especiall y from i ndividuals and corpora te organi zations. Si nce then,

the R esource Mobili zation Unit (RMU) has been cons tantl y worki ng on vari ous aspects

to improve its e ffect iveness and e ffi ciency in rai sing support from var ious st akehol ders.

The RMU marked a number of incidences o f exciti ng progress and achi evements last

year. T w o new team members joined the Resource Mobilization Unit. On one hand, t he

new members acquired news roles and responsibilities wi thin the team, on t he other, their

parti cipati on i n the Program meant devising strategies and bui lding a long term vis ion for

RMU.

Communications

Webs ite: It had been three years since Seva Mandi r’ s w ebsite had been updat ed

complet ely. Moreover, t he rapi d change in t echnol ogy results in vi ewers expect ations and

time span on any websi te. In this connection, there w ere rounds o f discussions wit h

volunteers in RMU and st aff to evaluate the cur rent status of Seva Mandir w ebsit e. As a result, t he team decided to give a full make over in view of its content and its layout.

Duri ng the reporti ng period, it was decided to outsource a des igner t o build the w ebsit e

from scrat ch. I t w as felt that if the w ebsite is built on the Content Management System

(CMS), it would be eas y to maint ain, reproduce mult iple numbers of pages w hen requi red

and decentra lize t he managem ent of sections on the website for regular updat es in t he

future. T he descript ion of al l t he program s w as col lected from t he respective units and t he

designing of t he w ebsite began i n March.

E-newslet ters: A vol unteer ( from US) in RMU designed a template for e-news lette r for

Seva Mandir and it was launched in June 2010. T he template is user friendly and is i n line wi th t he color scheme o f Seva Mandir websi te. How ever dur ing the report ing peri od

the issue of mas s-emailing of t hese new slett ers remained a challenge. Another iss ue that

came up was about the kinds of news to be shared with our w ell wi shers, since the hard

copy of n ewsle tter of Sev a Mandir covers a var iety o f a rticl es and updates. It was

concluded t hat it might be of best prac tice to include br ief ar ticl es from current volunteers

on their proj ects, bri ef stories o f success from t he fi eld and some new s about t he recent

happenings w ithi n Seva Mandi r. Duri ng the reporting per iod, onl y t hree new sletters were

dist ributed as against six in a year. T he frequency o f distribution was l ow due to the del ay

in final izing the new t emplat e.


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Database of contacts of donors, friends and w ell-wi shers: A survey conducted in this regard showed t ha t about 75% o f t he people w ho responded want ed to hear from Seva

Mandir quite frequent ly (once in 2 or 3 m ont hs). T his information is par ticul arl y helpful

in dec iding t he frequency o f our communication with our w ell wishers and donors.

Duri ng t he reporti ng peri od near ly 25% of duplicat e entries i n the database were indenti fi ed and cons ol idated. T he missing informat ion for volunteers and visitors was

explored from the old repor ts and about 10% o f the ent ries were ret rieved. It is pivotal t o

develop syst em of col lecti ng informat ion/data from al l depar tments on a regular basi s. In

the future it woul d be w orth to inculcat e a practi ce o f recording compl ete informati on and

to s hare it wit h t he database operator regul arly.

Pu blic Relations

Volunteers in R MU: Duri ng the repor ting period seven vol unteers got associated wit h

RMU supporti ng various proj ects and ongoi ng programs. The main proj ects taken up

during t he repor ting were –

“W rit ing grant proposals and creating a standard templ ate informati on for grant

proposals”; “Creati ng templ ate for el ectronic newsle tters”; “Cleani ng up data, consolidat ing duplicate entries and managing cont act database”; “Creati ng m arketi ng

brochures and greeti ng cards”; “ An assessm ent of current w ebsite in view of it s content

and l ayout”, “W riti ng content for Seva Mandir website”, “Creating effective Fund

Raising Presentati ons”; “Creating a legacy pack for legacy fundrai sing” and “W riti ng a

scri pt for a short fi lm on Balwadi ”.

Foundations/ C orporate Soc ial Responsi bili ty: During the reporting period, RMU

continued facilitating comm uni cati ons wi th the U PS found ation. It was l earnt t hat t he

UPS makes next grant a ft er t wo years o f t he previous grant bei ng full y utilized by t he

grantee. T herefore, Seva Mandir can be eligible to apply for anot her grant in 2013. A proposal on Gram Vikas K osh w as sent t o C anada Local Fund Initiat ive whereas

possibilities w ere expl ored with W omen’s Fund, DFID, A ustra lia Embas sy and Japan

Embassy during t he reporting period. Another proposal for clean dr inking wat er w as

submitted to T een’s Foundation, USA. During t he repor ting period, e fforts were made to

write effec tive Letter of Inquiry to i nitiate rela tionshi ps w ith foundati ons .

A couple of new relati ons hips were also expl ored wi th FutureEyes Indi a (G reen and

Good Store) and Next Gen. They w ish t o support pl antation of t rees for reduci ng t he

carbon footprint s. T here have been some deve lopments in communication with them and

we hope to materialize this rela tionshi p with them in the next year.

In Udaipur city, Seva Mandir coll aborated with T aj Group of H otels. Under thi s

partnership the rural youth were engaged wit h educational and vocational trainings at

YRC in U rban block. A coupl e o f youth al so j oined t heir on-job trai ning programs, whi ch

aimed at buildi ng skills of rural youth of t hi s region.


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Our relationship with HRH group of Hote ls cont inued duri ng the reporti ng period. T hey purchased t he ‘dal’ (P igeon pea) produced and processed by local farm ers o f Kot ra (A n

income generati on initi ative o f Seva Mandir ). T hey a lso purchased the Soy products from

the rural ent repreneurs o f Kaya vi llage (another income generation intervention of Seva

Mandir).

Media Relat ions: During the repor ting peri od, six issues o f G atibimb, the i nternal

newsl etter and four issues o f Saks harta Sandesh, t he newsl ette r in H indi and Mewari

were published. T wo jingles were aired on R ural School and C hild Helpline program of

Seva Mandir. T he Publi c Hearing on the educat ion sys tem in K herwada Bl ock was aired

on Akashw ani. There were a num ber o f adverti sements and publicity published i n local

newspapers incl uding Jai Rajasthan, D ainik Bhaskar , R ajasthan Patrika, Aprahan Times,

the magazine Mool Prashan. In total forty press news w ere covered about Seva Mandir’ s

work and vari ous events in local news papers round t he year.

High Net-worth I ndividuals: W e conti nued harness ing our relationshi ps w ith some high

net worth indivi duals during t he repor ting per iod. T hey supported children and educat ion

programs. W e w ere able to explore a few other indivi dua ls w ho have agreed to support

our programs. There is a huge untapped potent ial wit h high new wor th i ndi viduals and

therefore, RMU w ould be aimi ng at developing a strategy of i denti fyi ng such individual s

and cult ivati ng relati onships with identified pros pects in the future.

Friends Groups (FSM – US / U K): RMU continued int erfacing w ith t he friends groups

in Ameri ca and England. Var ious proj ect reports, proposals and i nform ation w ere gi ven

to the friends groups t o faci lit ate them for raisi ng support for Seva Mandir . A staff

member visi ted the USA in September-November’10 to connect FSM U SA w ith fr iends

and ex-volunteers of Seva Mandi r to leverage friends’ net work in harness ing their

support. Duri ng the reporting peri od FSM, UK also revisi ted thei r strategi es and had

several rounds of discuss ions as to how they can adjust t o the changi ng environm ents of

fund raisi ng. In the fut ure we hope to build close re lati ons hip with them and an

understanding of how best w e can serve them in facil itating s upport for our programs.

Fund Raising

Online Fund R aising: Duri ng the reporti ng period, the Res ource Mobil ization Program

continued w it h its focus on provi ding regul ar feedback report s to indi vidual donors on

Global Gi ving, Give India, Goodwill Association of Amer ica et c. T he efforts are st ill

focusi ng on improvi ng the qualit y of feedback report s to our donors and t o ensure their timely distributi on.

Give Indi a: During the reporti ng period w e continued to rai se funds from G ive India

website. W e raised over 29 L acs from Give India including the i ndividual and C orporat e

Donors on Gi ve India. T he revision of var ious projects on Give India was carri ed out; it


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included rewr iti ng the cont ent, summary o f t he projec t in brie f, its impact and revisi ng the budget (unit costi ng of the proj ect) from each donor. A t the mom ent, there are four

project s allowing t he indivi dual donors to choose proj ect of their choi ce from Rural

School, B alw adi, A nicut and Past ureland devel opm ent programs. I t w as a significant

exerci se as it w ill determine i n the future, if the t otal amount of donation i ncreases as against the number of donors who s upport our project s on Give India. It will als o help us

calcul ate w hich proj ects do well in India and perhaps w hy. B ased on t hese findings w e

would l earn to better serve our donors on G ive Indi a and encourage more p eople to

support us.

Give India int roduced to us w it h tw o new C orporate partners - Make M y T rip (T he Green

Initiative) and Parle G (plant ation project ). Bot h thes e donors suppor ted planti ng sapli ngs

under our A fforest ation and Pasture land Developm ent Project. Make My T rip al one

supported pl antat ion of 225,000 (worth Rs. 25 lacks approximate ly) s aplings last year. A

short fi lm on our pas turel and development program w as al so produced for Give India and

Make My T ri p’s marketing campaign. The copy o f t he same is al so publi shed on Seva

Mandir websi te.

A trai ning organi zed by G ive India on “ Understanding the donati on opti ons and feedb ack

report s”, w hich was attended by RMU team in June. I t w as very useful to know vari ous

tools Give offers to its par tners. It also he lped us gain a deeper i nsight as to w hat t he

donors like t o know in feedback reports for their donati on.

Global Giving: W e cont inued rai sing support for vari ous programs list ed on Global

Giving. T here are current ly 7 project s– NFE, SHG, GVK, Fellow ship, Immunizat ion, Dal

Mil l and Food Security.

W e parti cipat ed in a chall enge call ed “Top 10 W i ns Challenge” on G lobal Giving i n

March 2011. W e promot ed our proj ect “Food Security for farmers in India” duri ng thi s

challenge and stood t hird and won a prize of £300 i n additi on to w hat w e ra ised duri ng

the chal lenge (£705) . Some of our fri ends made t he donation on the US sit e whi ch was

not counted tow ards t he chal lenge goal. H owever, in total w e raised a signi ficant porti on

o f suppor t for this project. T his was our fir st tim e when we promoted a project whi ch was

not related to children or health or educat ion. Moreover, for t he first ti me, we chalked out

a speci fic strategy of cont acting people and encouragi ng them to donate during thi s

challenge. W e learnt a l ot from participati ng in this chall enge and hope t o buil d on these

learni ngs for par tici pating in challenges in the future. N earl y US$ 34,347 (Rs.

1,545,6154) was raised (incl uding t he prize money w e won in t he chall enge) i n last year

through vari ous proj ects lis ted on G lobal Gi ving. A vi sit to Seva Mandir was conduct ed

from Global Givi ng in June t o see projec ts li sted on G lobal Giving as well as other project s implem ented by Seva Mandir. T he focus o f the visit was to understand our w ork

and capture pict ures of t he w ork done.

4 This is g ross am ount ra ise d, the 15% admin fee of Globa l Giv ing is inc luded in this am ount


93

Duri ng the reporting peri od, a si gnificant st ep was under taken by RMU . A reporti ng

calendar was establi shed to enable timely report-generati on for various programs l ist ed

on Gl obal Givi ng and G ive India. T he calendar was fol lowed strictl y duri ng the report ing

period and there has been an improvement in generating regular report s. A t ot al of five feedback report s w ere shared wit h t he donors on Global Giving for al l project s

throughout the year. In addit ion, a couple o f news and pictures w ere a lso shared wi th t he

donors to update them about the recent happening in Seva Mandi r. The e ffort was t o

engage wi th them more w hich w as als o faci lit ated through w ri ting personalized t hank

you notes. It is to be noted that Gl oba l Giving has now enabled project managers to send

‘individual thank you’ emails by using t heir web-bas ed tem plate. I t is a great tool and w e

hope to use it more constructively for buildi ng relationshi ps with these donors.

W e a lso participated in some w ebinars hosted on Global Giving to enhance our

understanding about the social media as a tool for raising funds and aw areness, how t o

design a strategy for parti cipati ng i n online chal lenges and to learn more about t he

various campaigns on G lobal Gi ving t his year.

Conclusion

Overa ll it was a year o f success and re flect ion. H aving new t eam members allowed RMU

to formulat e it s visi on and mi ssion for the next few years. On t he contra ry challenges

remai ned in movi ng forw ard w ith plans that were chalked out for the year. T he mai n

reason w as because one or t wo team mem bers w ere aw ay for a considerabl e peri od o f

time and that resul ted i nto i rregul ar communicat ion amongst the t eam members and del ay

in execut ing t he acti on plans. T he inadequat e response from the programs for re-w riti ng

the websit e cont ent and fi na lizi ng the layout result ed in heavy del ay o f launching the new

website wit hin t he repor ting period.

Despite t he delays and challenges, RMU has been able to t ake a concrete s hape in t erms o f i ts approach, vision and act ion plans. In the future RMU will be able t o build on it s

existing know ledge and st rengthen its team’s capacities. T here are a num ber of

possibilities and unt apped potenti al t ha t R MU w ould focus to achieve in the next few

years.


94

Annexures

Staff and Consultant Details (As on 31st

March, 2011) Slab of gross s alary (i n Rs) plus benefits pai d to staff (per

month)

M ale staf f Female staff Total staff

Less than 5000 13 08 21

5,000 – 10,000 104 47 151

10,000 – 25,000 74 33 107

25,000 – 50,000 13 7 20

50,000 – 1,00,000 0 1 1

Greate r t han 1,00,000 204 96 300

Total annual payments made to consult ants

(In Rs)

Number of

consul tants Less than 5000 0

5,000 – 10,000 2

10,000 – 25,000 9

25,000 – 50,000 0 50,000 – 1,00,000 0

Staff remuneration [Gross yearly + benefits] in Rupees in

2010-2011

Governance

Sr.No

Name

Age

Gender

Occupat ion

Position in the Board

Total amount

pai d in last financi al

year (Rs.)

Form of payment

Salary/Consultancy/Hon

orarium/Sit ting Fees/other(S

pecif y)

1 Ajay Singh 57 Mal e President President No A mount No payment

Head of the orga nisat ion: ( including honora rium ) Rs. 6,00,000/- per year

Highest pa id Full T im e regul ar staff: R s. 4,63,308/- per year

Lowe st paid Full Time regular sta ff: R s. 30, 000/- per ye ar

Formatted Table

Formatted Table


95

Mehta Seva Mandir. is paid. is made.

2

Mohan Singh

Kothari

76 Mal e Social worker

Member No A mount

is paid.

No payment

is made.

3

Jagat S. Mehta

89 Mal e Retired Foreign

Secretary of

the Govt. of India .

Member No A mount is paid.

No payment is made.

4

V. B. Eswaran

82 Mal e Directo r o f Women's Features

Service .

Member No A mount is paid.

No payment is made.

5

N eeli ma K hetan

51 Female Country

Director of Ameri can

Indi a Foundati on.

Member No A mount

is paid.

No payment

is made.

6

Pamela Philipose

57 Female Directo r, Women's Features

Service .

Co-opted Member

No A mount is paid.

No payment is made.

7

Prof. Ravinder

K aur

53 Female Head of Department o f Humanities

and Social Sciences, Indian Institu te of Technology

(IIT), New

Delhi.

Co-opted Member

No A mount is paid.

No payment is made.

Tot al cost of Int ernational T ravel by all personnel, Board Members and sta ffs during t he

year (March 31, 2011)

Name Deepti Ame ta

Designation In charge of Resource Mobilization Program

Destination U.S.A

Purpose Fundraising

Gross Expense (R s) 144,567

Sponsore d by ext erna l orga nisation No


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Financials


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